


The Things We Wish We Could Forget

by Rainycat



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: But funny, F/F, F/M, Gen, I DONT MAKE THE RULES, I dont know how to tag, ITS GONNA BE GAY, M/M, also church is trans, church has did, church is very bi, current tuckington, hes a mess, idk man its a fic by me, it's the ai conglomerate, or a version of it with ai, past chucker, that's what it is, this is gonna be weirdly sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 14:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16641969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainycat/pseuds/Rainycat
Summary: Are the things that haunt us the most.Aka the verse where the AI fragments all survive the Meta by merging together and fleeing. Church now has to deal with all of the fragments living in his head. God send help.





	1. Don't Step On Legos With Tacks In Them, Kiddos

A gunshot, and Wash fell with a grunt. Faintly he could hear talking, a distant buzzing- and then he heard it. “You know, Meta? Why wait? Why don’t you meet him, _right now?”_

Heh, showtime. Church materialized over Washington’s shoulder, all glow-y and a whitish-blue (which was bullshit, by the way, who wants just _white_ as an armor color? Bleh. Yes, Meta, he's shading you.) as he looked at the Meta. The assorted fragments appeared in a glowing ring around the Meta’s head, and Church paused when he saw a familiar black-armored projection staring back at him.“Uh, hi,” he greeted.

 _“It’s him!”_ one whispered.

 _“It’s the Alpha!_ ” another voice hissed. After that, Church stopped being able to pick out individual voices as they rose to a clamor of “ _Alpha_!”

While they did… that nonsense, Church turned and looked at Wash. “...You know, I can see why you didn’t want anyone in your head. Got some pretty heavy stuff going on in there. I think you need to talk to a professional.”

Washington just groaned. “That’s too bad. I just lost my job, and we had _great_ mental health coverage.” ...Right, bullet wound, Church kind of forgot.

Serious mode engaged, he supposed… “How much time do you need?”

Wash looked at the still-arguing-with-itself Meta. “Whatever you can get me. When the E.M.P. goes off-”

Church turned away, false bravado lining his voice. “When it goes off, I’ll be _fine_. It only affects computers, remember? And I…”

He paused, taking a breath to collect himself and come to terms with what exactly he was about to do. Yes, this was a suicide mission, but… it would get his friends out safely. Hopefully. Well. He didn’t know what would happen, he just had to hope that reckless group of idiots wouldn’t flip the jeep somewhere and die.

“... _am a motherfuckin’ ghost.”_ Church ran from Washington’s head into the Meta’s.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Instantly he was hit with a complete and total cacophony of noise as the fragments slammed into each other. If you’ve ever been on an overcrowded school bus, it was kind of like that, except there’s no seats and everyone’s trying to touch you.

...Okay so it’s nothing like an overcrowded school bus but you get the point. The moment after he made the comparison, though, the noise got quieter, and.. A familiar figure put up a wall between them and the others.

“Hey, nerd,” she said, her helmet off to smile at him. “Seems you’ve gotten yourself into one hell of a pickle, huh?”

Church looked down, a sheepish grin on his face. “Didn’t really have a choice, now, did I, Tex?” He’ll walk over to hug her tightly and hold her close against him.

“I- Church!” She laughs, sputtering at his hair in her face. “Bargh, you don’t even _have_ a body and I can taste the _hairspray_! Ew!”

He snorts and pulls back, linking their hands. Church glanced over and saw Washington moving in slow-motion, his hand going for the switch. “... Hm. How much time do you think we have?”

“About… ten seconds, real-time? But here… well. As much time as you need. Why?”

He looked at her, then their joined hands, then the fragments staring at them through the firewall. “....Do you want to die, Tex? I don’t.”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you had swirly-straws over there hit the emp switch.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Nice going there, too.”

“... Delta’s here, right?”

“Wait you met- right, of course you did. Uh, yeah, he’s here. You want to talk to him?”

“Please.”

He kissed her cheek before she headed off, then came back dragging a green-armored guy with glasses. “Wow, he’s even nerdier-looking than me- oh, _whoops_ , I did not mean to say that out loud.”

“It is alright, Alpha. What do you need?” the emerald man asked, tilting his head curiously.

“Realistically, how hard would it be for us to get the hell out of dodge to… anything nearby, out of range of the emp, that can hold us all?”

“The… _emp_?” Look at the confusion in the poor fragment’s face.

Tex leaned over with a snicker. “Sim trooper, remember? It’s an E.M.P., they’re just idiots.”

“Ah. Well, realistically, as… separated as we are currently, the closest nearby computer does not have the _space_ to hold us all. Of course, you could fix that if you wish..”

“How? We don’t have much time left,” Church warned, glancing back at Wash. His hand was almost to the switch.

“..Merge with us.”

“Excuse me, uh, hi, tapping in here to say _absolutely fucking not!”_ Tex griped, flicking Church’s ear.

“Ow.”

“Wuss. You aren’t going to merge with the fragments, are you? You don’t know what will happen.”

“Well, worst-case scenario, we all die. Best-case scenario, we live and go our merry ways.” Church shrugged. “I’ll take either one at this point, honestly.”

“....Fine. But, I’m staying. Ah- no, _don’t_ interrupt me,” she hummed, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m staying because someone _has_ to be here to make sure the suit gets fried. And… you’ll be okay without me, Church. Seriously.”

He paused to look softly at her. “.... I… okay. Okay, Tex. Just… be careful, okay? And.. if you do make it out… come find me, please.”

“Eh. You know it’s hard to kill a bitch like me,” she answered, that cocky grin on her face.

“That is is. I…” Church took a long, deep breath, looking at the fragments as Delta went to explain what would happen.

“Goodbye, Texas.” She looked stricken for a moment, then smiled sadly.

“Bye, Church.” Tex turned and folded her hands in front of herself, staring at Washington’s falling hand. Church watched her a moment more before sighing and turning to the fragments… and let himself be open as the AI fragments rushed him.

 

* * *

 

 

Fuck fuck uck **fuck** fjduck fuk F _UCK THISa_ huRTS why did he- _**ow** ow ow **ow** **ow ow**_ \- this was a _mi s-take-_  !

As it turned out, merging fragments hurts worse than walking on Legos with tacks stuck through them while barefoot. Whaddya know. Church- Alpha- the conglomerate? No, he was Church- was just… barely clinging to his sanity and sense of self. He looked down at his hands, and instead of the white glow he’d gotten used to, they were multicolored- sometimes flashing green, purple, magenta, all kinds of colors.

No time to think about that now, though. He looked over at Wash, whose hand was almost on the button- then took a deep breath. Something.. Someone whispered instructions to him, how to expand his senses and find the nearest computer that could house them all. Church paused, breathed, then leaped, the whispers guiding him through the wires and signals until they were off of that damn planet, far, far away from the Meta.

Distantly he realized they were in a ship, as they had to nudge through some firewalls to curl up in the computers. It.. had taken a surprising amount of energy to get this far, so once he was certain they were safe, Church flopped down on the ground and groaned.

“Never. Ever. Make me. Do that. Again,” he whined pathetically.

A bright flash surrounded him, and he felt a weight on his chest. When he looked up, the pinkish one- the kid, Theta- was sitting there, grinning at him. “You did it!!!!”

Oh my god how is this one so cute. How. He’s so tiny. Church, of course, said none of this out loud (but let’s be real, Theta probably heard him anyway) and just raised an eyebrow. “Did you doubt me?”

“I have trust issues. It’s my whole thing.”

Okay, that got a laugh. “You know what, kid? I think we’re gonna get along just fine. Now, c’mon, it’s naptime.”

“But-”

“Nap. Time.”


	2. That's Not An Ominous Wall At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wheee here we go again

As much as Church wished the first ship would have been able to house them, it didn’t. Someone noticed the sudden power surge, and in order to evade detection, Church and the AIs had been forced to flee. 

Again.

Goddamnit.

It took a few tries, but they eventually landed on a ship large enough to hold all of them. During the breaks between jumps, they had settled together, the confusing mess of thoughts calming down and becoming more distinct from each other as more and more time passed. The fragments weren’t…  _ entirely _ content with not being merged- Sigma being the loudest objector- but Church just glared him down. He likes his individuality, thank you very much. 

The whole… “they’re part of you” thing, he has yet to reconcile. Shove that into the  **Let’s not think about this** folder. And yes, there’s a folder. 

Delta made it. 

Micromanager.

Tangent aside, Church was looking around, Delta feeding information to him as he took in the database of information. This ship was fucking  _ huge _ \- reminiscent of the Mother of Invention, D supplied.

The memories of that particular ship have yet to reappear in Church’s head. He’s surprisingly okay with that. So are the others. 

Dozens of people man the ship, but he’s so wrapped up mentally exploring the place, he doesn’t notice the trap they’re in until it’s too late. Firewalls slam up around them, keeping the “intruder” quarantined to one section. Theta yelped, immediately clinging to Church, whose hand flitted to the kid’s hair comfortingly.

“What’s going on?” He whined, his face buried in Church’s side. The elder hummed, curling Theta close. 

“Uh… quarantine, I think. Don’t worry, I’ve got this, kiddo. Delta, try and find a way out for us, okay?” 

The emerald AI nodded once, before flitting away to, presumably, inspect the firewalls. Theta started to calm as Delta gave them the diagnostics- the trap was merely to contain, not to harm. Someone seemed to know they meant to harm to the ship.

Church petted the pink kid’s hair soothingly while Delta talked, and Church took the moment to look around in concern. This was.. Peculiar. He’d never been in a quarantine before… that he could remember at least. Either way, it was a novel experience. They could *see* the red lines of binary surrounding them, but at least the walls weren’t closing in. That would have freaked him out. Too Indiana-Jones-y. Focus, Church.

“D, what do we got?”

“Simple containment. They’ve made no moves to harm us as of yet.” 

“Let me know if that changes- Theta, you okay if I let you go, buddy?” He asked, looking down. Theta hummed an affirmative and stepped back. Church grinned and patted his shoulder, then heads over to inspect the walls. A poke yielded no results. That’s awesome. “So… now what, we just sit here and wait?” 

_ “If you wish. I could also help,” _ a male, British voice called out. Church swore in surprise and looked around. 

“Who are you?!”

“ _ The commander of this ship. I repeat myself- I would like to speak with you. If you can extricate your code from the mangled mess you’re in at the moment- if not, I could surely assist you.”  _

He went a little on edge. “And just who is making this offer, then?”

“ _ You may call me Chairman. _ ”


	3. Chairman Needs a Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Yin for commenting on literally everything with such kind words, and Chet_Un_Gwan for reminding me to post.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR AN ANXIETY ATTACK & FLASHBACK.

Chapter 3

“Chairman? That's ominous. Ooo, do you have one of those spinny chairs? And a cat?” Church yelled at the sky, grinning. In the background, he could hear Eta and Iota discussing what kind of cat.

Probably one of the weird naked ones. Gremlins.

_“That is unimportant at the moment. However, if you would like, I have the ability to help you. Won't you tell me your name?”_

He hesitated. “Sorry, disembodied voice. I cannot give you my name, but I can say my name is Leo.” Technically not a lie, but not a truth, either. “I am an AI…. Apparently.”

_“Apparently?”_ the voice mused, interested. “ _I would think that would be something you would know… how old are you, Leo?”_

He blinked, then shot a look at Delta. D just shrugged. Well, that's helpful. “Um…. Four,” Church said hesitantly. He's adding a year from how long he was in Blood Gulch, just to be safe. “Why?”

_“Hmm… memory problems, perhaps? I can help with that- you may be needing some service updates, especially with how… complicated your coding seems to be. I can bring some people in, and they can take a look-”_

“Absolutely not. No. No fucking way. We've dealt with enough of you eggheads fucking around in there and dealt with the consequences of it-” Church cut himself off to lean against the firewall, his hands clenched. He couldn’t even entertain the _idea_ of someone fucking around in his head- in his _code_ \- again, not after the- the Director-

A small ballistic missile hit him in the stomach, 70 pounds of Theta hugging him tightly. “s'ok, Alpha, we’re here. It won't happen again, we swear. None of us will let you get hurt ever again.” Church gasped in air and curled in on the kid, trying to fend off the sudden panic attack. He didn’t even know _why-_

\----

_A memory slammed into him with the speed and force of a train. He was in a room, with some tv screens on a far wall. The lighting in here was peculiar, but he had enough to keep himself entertained by working on some simulations for the soldiers._

_Hm. The scary girl, South Dakota, was definitely more of a brawler type. Alpha wasn't sure why Dr. Church kept assigning her to stealth missions… maybe a test? He kind of didn't care._

_“Alpha,” a voice called, and the AI jumped to his feet. He knew that voice, trusted that voice implicitly. After all, it was the voice of his creator._

_“Director, sir! I finished those simulations you gave me, along with a few different variants of a mission roster. I was thinking, if we move Agent South Dakota to a more hand-to-hand mission style, she would work much better with Agent Michigan-”_

_“Alpha. Michigan was killed last week,” the Director replied. “After we let you design the mission roster, he was killed in action.”_

_Alpha drew back. Michigan? But he was so strong and tough- “What happened to him?”_

_“That is none of your concern. I'm sending you some files I need you to crack.”_

_“I- okay, Director.”_

_“Log off.”_

_\--_

_This…. Couldn't be right. The data files the Director had sent him were intelligence into the Insurrectionists.. but for some reason, a file containing Michigan's last mission debriefing was in the stack as well. Curious, he opened it up, only to find that Michigan had returned safe and sound._

_It didn't add up. Why would the Director lie? What could possibly compel him to tell Alpha that one of the AI's favorite agents was dead, when that couldn’t be further from the truth?_

_He kept scanning, frowning when he saw his name. “...prompted, Alpha expressed remorse and sadness over the death of a favored Agent. As the Agent was not truly deceased, I took it upon myself to rectify the situation, before Alpha could discover otherwise.”_

_Alpha stared in dawning horror, before jolting in surprise as the Counselor called, “Hello, Alpha. How are you doing today?”_

_He knew. He knew Michigan wasn't dead, and had him killed. He- he lied to Alpha, and manipulated him into thinking it was his fault- he TRUSTED HIM AND HE LIED AND BETRAYED AND KILLED-_

_\---_

Church jolted out of the memory, a shuddering gasp slipping past as he stared at Theta in confusion. For his part, the kid fragment just looked back with innocence and mirrored bewilderment.

Was that… what happened?

_“Are you alright, Leo? You went unresponsive for a little while,”_ the British voice called again. Church flinched, then looked up.

“I…. I'm fine. I just remembered something unpleasant.”

_“I could help with that..”_

“I… might just take you up on that offer. I need to think about it first, though.”

_“Of course. Take all the time you need._ ”


	4. Hargrove is a Bad Dude

**Chapter 4**

Oh god this was not fun. He had #regrets, sitting in an isolated room with only himself and his code. He’d taken up Chairman’s offer, and had subsequently been moved to a different system for the repairs. It would help the fragments merge together better, so he’d be less at war with himself, hopefully. That was the main takeaway they got from it, along with a potentially smoother experience between each other. At the moment, there was jagged edges of code chafing against itself, but… maybe this update would smooth those edges out, at least a little bit. 

They could only hope. Church was directed to go offline for a little bit, and after Theta taught him  _ how _ , he did. 

\---

Hargrove looked at the tech with an expectant glare. “Well? Get started. He won’t be under for long.” 

God. Years,  _ years _ of waiting and searching for this AI. He’d been looking since damned Freelancer, finding evidence of an artificial intelligence program and its misuse. They had somehow gained multiple programs, and had only been assigned one, the Alpha AI. Digging deeper yielded few results, only that the competition for these programs is what drove Freelancer into the ground. 

Literally.

Now, though… he had Alpha in his grasp, even if the program refused to admit his identity. He appeared to be suffering from some form of dissociative identity disorder, but seemed to be making his system work. Hargrove had…  _ no _ idea how an  _ artificial intelligence program _ could develop  _ that _ , but he didn’t particularly want to know. Perhaps after the… update, Alpha would be more willing to talk. 

The AI tech set to her work, implementing new code and realigning some of the old. A new program was set in place- a behavioral matrix to get Alpha more securely on Hargrove’s side. It would… skew his morals, a bit, and make him more susceptible to Hargrove’s orders. He would be firmly on their side, and that was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. A smart AI who would do anything he asked? Hell yes.

The code transfer went well, and soon enough they were bringing Alpha back online. The AI stirred to life, code settling back into place and accepting the updates. “How are you feeling, Leo?” Hargrove inquired, watching him in the monitor. Alpha flashed a few colors, curiously, seeming to have a mental debate with himself- emerald green prevailed for a few moments, before he went back to pure white. 

“ _ Uh…. honestly? A hell of a lot better, Chairman. Like… everything’s back in its spot, if that makes sense?” _

“It does. Good, that’s what we were going for. Now… we’re going to give you a few tests, okay? Don’t worry about being right or wrong, it’s just to test your capabilities. There’s no repercussions for failing.”

_ “........Okay, I guess.” _  Alpha seemed to flicker for a moment, turning a faint magenta before returning to his white coloration. Peculiar. 

Hargrove nodded to the tech, who set up a few scenarios for Alpha to work through. They were designed to check his reaction times, mostly, but would also see how well he was adapting to the new code. It seemed he accepted it well, and was passing the tests with flying colors. Good.

When they finished, Hargrove directed Alpha to go offline for a bit and rest. He leaned back with a faint smile, looking at the computer screen. Finally. 

Now… all they had to do was get Alpha into a body, and test his fighting capabilities. 


	5. Why Make A Robot You Can't Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vine references. Theta gets a dog, everyone is confused.

That ended up being far easier said than done. Even with the AI's assistance in designing and building his body, it was….. difficult, to say the least. Alpha was a very picky AI when it came to the exact specifications of his body. As it turned out, when he had been implanted in a human host back in Blood Gulch, whenever he used that sniper rifle of his, he had been aiming from just above his shoulder, not from his eyes. He'd been compensating too high this entire time, and with the fragments’ help, Alpha quickly realized there wasn't a shot he couldn’t hit. 

 

Of course, that's only when the fragments were helping. Without Theta's help, Church would revert back to overcompensating without even realizing. 

 

Eventually, though, the body was finished, and Alpha eyed it critically. He felt the slight tug on his subconscious that meant Sigma and Delta were tugging away just a little bit, so they could check over the body. Theta hovered in the background, reassuring Church that it was gonna be safe, the thing wouldn't just spontaneously combust, relax, chill out, stop screaming.

 

Vine references aside, Church settled with a little hum as Delta and Sigma returned. Sigma set a hand on his shoulder, looking over it. “It will do, for your purposes.”

 

“It has the systems to house us for months on end without being overloaded. The android itself runs on solar power, so as long as we stay in the sun for at least an hour every day to replenish our reserves, we will be just fine,” Delta chimed in, flickering next to Church. 

 

“Thanks, guys. Alright, let's get ready to make the jump.” He turned and looked at the others in the system, tilting his head a little. “I…. Theta…. What even…?”

 

Theta looked up from where he was playing with a holographic puppy. “I got a dog!”

 

“Yes, I- I see that. But, um.  _ How _ did you get a dog?”

 

“Well, the update gave us a looooot more space to work with, so I downloaded a video file of a puppy playing, then fiddled with it and made a tiny puppy!!!”

 

“...........You know what? Sure, buddy. What's his name?”

 

“Her, and her name is River.”

 

“Ohhhkay then. Well. Um. Is River ready to make the jump to the new body?” Church asked. He doesn't even- nope, he'll let this one go. Just nope. 

 

“Mhm!!!” Theta grinned and hopped up, deactivating the puppy program for now. “C'mon, Alpha!!! We’re all ready, the only one not ready is you!”

 

“Alright then.” He sighed and closed his eyes, looking within himself for the bits of code that made up the fragments. Sigma was the one to show him this, back when they were running from the emp. Church visualized the web that connected him and all the fragments together, then slowly gathered the strands closer to him. Once he had a tight grip, he opened his eyes again, looking around.

 

\----

_ “Chairman? I’m ready,” _ sounded the voice from the computer. Hargrove hummed, and pressed the intercom button to respond. 

 

“Go ahead and jump when you're ready, Leo.” He'd been watching the whole time, and noticed a few curiosities when Alpha would talk to himself. The energy readings would flare just the slightest bit, and the white hue he gave off would tint slightly. It was  _ incredibly  _ intriguing, but… ah, an experiment for another day. 

 

Hargrove glanced over at the android body waiting for its host, and once again was taken aback at just how lifelike it looked. They had gone all out, truly, and it was…. Unsettling. A synthetic skin layer was on the outside, hiding the plates, various wires, insulation, and metal skeleton that made up the body. It looked incredibly human, with hair and everything. 

 

Yes, everything, because Alpha was insistent. “ _ Why make a robot you can't fuck????” _

 

That phrase will haunt Hargrove until the end of his days.

 

Nevertheless, the computer went dark, and Hargrove held his breath. Moment of truth- if the AI wasn't strong enough to make the jump, there would be no way he's strong enough to power the body…. and would therefore be useless to Hargrove’s plans. 

 

Thankfully, however, the body powered up after a minute, bright blue eyes flickering open. Alpha looked around groggily, checking systems and making sure everything was running fine. It was, so he started to take a step forward-

 

-and very nearly fell onto his face, as his legs felt like jelly. Being in a physical body after so long felt… really  _ fucking weird. _

 

“Well, hopefully that side effect shall pass soon, hmm?” A British voice said to his left. Church blinked and turned his head, not letting go of his grip on the table. “Hello, Leo.”

 

“....Oh my god, Chairman.” Church snorted, but will not move to shake his hand. Sorry, nope, he's clinging to this wall until his balance stops being all fucky. “I'd shake your hand, but-”

 

“You have a center of gravity now, yes. I'd imagine you’d be a bit off-balance, but other than that, how do you feel? Everything working?”

 

He glanced at himself in a window and blinked. That… wow. They had done an amazing job with his requests, making the body look exactly how he had wanted. “This is…. Amazing, thank you. It feels like… like me.”

 

Chairman chuckled under his breath. “Well, you provided us ample material to work from, so I would certainly hope so. You will have some time to test yourself and adjust to having a body, now, but… well. I have a mission I think you might like- but no matter, that's not for now. Alex will show you to your room.” 

 

“I get a room?”

 

“Of course you do. After all, if we're going to test how well you blend in with humans, it would be suspicious if you didn't.”

 

Church nodded. “Right, yeah. Of course. Uh, c'mon, then….. Aaaalex?” the woman nodded, grinning at him. “Alright, alex, let's go find this room of mine.”

\-----

Once Alpha left, Hargrove let the friendly smile drop from his face as he sipped his coffee. First the tests to see how well Alpha could pass as human… then they'd start working on his fighting capabilities. Hopefully within the month, he'd be introduced to Felix and Locus.

 

After all…. If you have a smart AI, and don't use it to win your war, well. That's just idiotic.


	6. New Names and New Missions

Today was the day. The day that Alpha would pick his new codename. God there were so many options that the others had presented him with, but only one really… stuck with him. 

Valdis. Literally meant “the dead”. It felt pretty damn appropriate.

With that out of the way, he was free to do pretty much whatever he wanted. Chairman would be bringing up his new coworkers in a few days, so until then, he had time to go get his new armor. They’d had to completely overhaul a set for him that could support the whole AI without crashing.

Whole…. Epsilon. Church knew they were still missing a fragment, but… Sigma’s unrelenting drive to find him was on the backburner for now. He was content with the Alpha. 

He wonders if this means he’s the rebound AI. Probably.

Nothing he can do about it now, Church mused as he headed down to the armory. They were supposed to pick the colors on his new armor today, and unfortunately he wasn’t allowed to be blue. Damnit, that’s his whole thing! 

_ Calm down, Alpha _ , Theta murmured in the back of his head.  _ Maybe you can paint your secondary color blue. _

Yeah. Yeah, he could do that. The main color of his armor just had to blend in a bit with the foliage of the planet. Tans and greens were his approved color palette, but Delta had reeled at the idea of being tan. Nope. 

Ugh. This made it….  _ So _ much more difficult. 

Church was shook out of his musings when he saw the armory guard staring blankly at him. “Can I…. help you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get your attention for three minutes,” the guard sassed. “You want in or no?”

He felt his face heat up in embarrassment as he nodded. Whoops. Seems he spaced out a bit…. The guard just huffs and opens up the door to the armory, letting Church pass. He immediately made a beeline for the silver suit of armor laying on a table, ready to be painted. Yes, okay. Good.

He looked it over, Delta humming statistics and analyzing the armor in his ear. The systems would hold them all easily, with room for growth. Good, that was the plan. Church picked up one of the spray cans and got to work. 

_ Tex would be proud,  _ he chuckled. It was… decidedly sad, and the fragments hummed their support. They missed her too, Alpha. 

A few hours later he hung it all up to dry. A deep steel color was what he ended up going with, with light blue pauldrons. On Chorus, he would be using a voice filter as well, but you could never be too careful. 

Besides. He wasn’t really part of Blue Team anymore…. Wasn’t Freelancer’s AI either. He had to forge a new identity.

Valdis. 

* * *

The very first words that Felix ever said to him were… absolutely not what he expected. See, Church had assumed that he would have a comment on his body, or maybe even the fact that he’s an AI.

No, the first thing that Felix said was: “You’re short.”

Church blinked and tilted his head in surprise. “I… excuse me?”

“Dude, you had the chance to build an  _ entire body _ to your liking. Why the hell did you make it so short?” The orange-clad man snorted at him. Leo narrowed his eyes in response. 

_ Weasle man _ , was the general response from the fragments. He chuckled inwardly and shook his head.

“More compact,” he said with a disarming grin. “I can still beat you in a gunfight.”

“You know, with that… science nerdy bullshit in your head, I’ll take your word for it. Now, beating  _ Locus _ in a gunfight is an entirely different matter.” Felix grinned at him. “That, I would  _ happily _ watch.”

“Weird flex but okay.”

The man threw his head back with a laugh, then tossed an arm around his shoulder. “Ooo, the computer has a sense of humor! Good, we’ll get along splendidly.” 

Church smiled a little and let Felix tug him around to… wherever they were going. There was going to be a bit of training on the ship first, before they were all sent back to Chorus. The training was exhausting on all of them, but at least there was bonding. 

Team bonding, he supposed. 

Having a team was… a weird thought. He knew he used to be part of Blue Team, but… the memories were foggy at best, now. He felt like… for some reason, they betrayed him? 

Church made a mental note to ask Chairman about it later. After all, when doing the coding update, he had probably looked at his memories, and would know why his memories were all fucky. But until then, he just had to put it at the back of his mind and focus, as he and Locus were in a shooting match for who could make the farthest and most accurate shot. So far Locus was winning…. 

At least until Church activated Delta and Theta in the back of his head. Time slowed a little, and the only thing Locus saw was Valdis tense, adjust his stance and grip, then fire off a series of perfect bullseyes. 

The tall man chuckled. “If you do that more often, you’ll put me out of a job.” 

Church relaxed and grinned. “Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

Locus shrugged. “Time will tell. Come, Command wants to brief us before we go down to Chorus.” 

The walk to the debriefing room was relatively short, but soon they were there, gathered around a table. Chairman hummed cooly at them, then turned to a screen.

“Felix, Locus, you both know your mission, but Valdis is new. I need to know that no matter what, no matter the mission, you will be willing to do whatever I order,” he says calmly. “If you follow orders to the letter, I will pay you an  _ extremely _ large sum. If you do not… Felix and Locus have been directed to disable you. Am I understood?” Chairman said, steel coating his tone. 

Valdis tensed, then nodded. “Understood, sir. Make no mistake, I will do whatever you ask of me. No matter what.”

He nodded, then turned to the large map. “Good. This.. is a map of Chorus. Unfortunately, recent events with the locals and their help have put my employees in the spotlight, so we need to be  _ very _ careful so as to not lose the locals’ trust. There are some outsiders working with them, and they aren’t quite as oblivious as everyone else…. Surprisingly.” Chairman uttered the last part under his breath. 

“Valdis, you are going to be working with the New Republic alongside Felix. You are to act as if you have never met each other before reaching the planet. Once there, you are free to form whatever relationship you wish, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the mission.” 

Church hummed. “Sir, if I may ask, why will I not be working with the Federal Army of Chorus?”

“They already have a sniper,” Felix answered with a wicked grin. “Best to keep them thinking the scale is balanced, hmm?” 

He grinned in response. “Understood. I retract my question, Chairman.”

“Good. All of you, go get some rest. You leave in the morning.”

“Yes sir."


	7. Valdis says some shit

Chorus, Church found… was  _ extremely _ boring. At first. There wasn’t much happening at the rebel base, to be honest, except for people dying. He tended to stay up out of the way of the others…

But then, one day, Felix came back to base alongside some familiar people. He couldn’t quite pin it, but… he knew these weirdly-colored people. It was concerning, the gaps in his memory. They looked like they’d been through hell, but Church managed to stay away from them for now, figuring they’d just been training. 

He didn’t miss Felix’s training. But at least they would be too tired to try and talk to him-

-then the dark blue one tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi!!!”

“Ahholyfuck-!” Church yelped, grabbing his sniper rifle off his shoulder and training it on the guy. “Who the- don’t sneak up on me you-!”

“Do you want to be my friend?” The man asked-  _ Michael J. Caboose, blue simulation soldier, previously stationed at Blood Gulch _ , Delta supplied. 

Oh. That’s where he knows him from. Church let his voice go cold behind the modifier. It would drop his voice a bit, make him just that slight bit harder to recognize. “No. No I do not. You’re… Caboose, right? You’re needed in the main compound. Felix is looking for you.”

“You know Felix! Do you work with him?”

Church could feel his soul slowly dying. And he’s an AI. He doesn’t  _ have _ a soul. “I do. Go. Now. Before I put a bullet in your chest.”

“Okay!!! What’s your name?”

“Oh son of a- Valdis. My name is Valdis. Now  _ shoo _ .”

Thankfully, Caboose skipped off to find the others, leaving Church alone in his thoughts. Theta wasn’t happy with that interaction, but he couldn’t figure out why. His memories of working with the reds and blues… they were difficult to access. It was a little concerning, but… something to be looked into at a later date. 

Church sighed and slung his rifle back over his shoulder. He would have a full introduction to the reds and blues later, but for now… For now, he needed a defrag and recharge cycle. Every so often he was supposed to do it (according to Delta) to keep their system running smoothly. It was the equivalent to a nap… so he sat down on a cliff overlooking the base and closed his eyes, letting the fragments guide him into a nap. 

\-----

_ Flashes. That’s all he was getting, was flashes- fucking around on base with Tucker and Caboose, “negotiating” with the reds… Tex showing up, then later Washington? It was blurry, but… he got the idea that it was strong, the bonds they had.  _

_ And then the EMP.  _

_ And his memories shattered into itty bitty pieces. _

_ \----- _

A bit of time passed, and for the most part, Valdis managed to stay mostly separate from Simmons, Grif, Tucker, and Caboose. He knew they were taking part of a training mission today, and grinned a little to himself. Yeah, he gets to shoot at them and basically wreak some havoc. 

Ha. 

He rolled his eyes when he tapped into their comms, listening to Grif go on about how he was “not gold, not yellow, I am  _ FUCKING ORANGE!” _

_ ‘What is with him and colors?’  _ Eta mused in the back of his head. Church snorted softly. 

“Color coded for your convenience,” he murmured in return. One of the soldiers working with him sent him a confused look.

“Sir?”

“Quiet, they’re coming this way,” he whispered. Shit, Valdis didn’t mean to say that aloud. Jesus  _ Christ _ they never stopped talking. What part of a stealth mission did they not understand? Fucking hell. He kept a track on how far into the base they got…. And then laughed when all hell broke out simultaneously. 

He grinned and took a few minor shots in the chaos, but mostly just sat back and watched the insanity. See, Grif…. Basically caused anarchy, so it was a complete and utter, glorious mess. 

His occasional sniper shots, just a bit close to a foot or a head, didn’t really help the whole anarchy thing.

He was almost disappointed when Kimball called the training exercise to a halt, but smirked when she started berating them. 

“What?! The HELL?! WAS THAT?!?!” She yelled, and Valdis winced. Damn, he heard that from way up here, on top of the base. 

Caboose ran screaming into the scene, then stopped abruptly. “Oh, we stopped.”

Fucking hell.

“What is the  _ point _ of these training exercises if you people aren’t going to work together?” Kimball demanded. 

“But we did, we had team names and everything,” Simmons defending, stepping forward. 

“Grif was gold!”

“ _ Orange. _ ”

“Oh my god. You had a plan, you  _ were _ organized, but once again, you crumbled under pressure. Valdis!” Oh boy. “Get down here.”

The android sighed softly and grabbed onto a nearby pipe, sliding down it like a fireman. “Ma’am,” he said calmly.

“What did they do wrong?”

Oh. Ohohohohoh. “Well..” Valdis looked at them critically, then at the gunshot holes riddling the base nearby. “As you said, ma’am, they failed to keep it together when it really mattered. If they had just stuck together and kept to the plan, the training mission had a good chance of success. But… they let their fear get the better of them.”

“Good. Lieutenants, debrief with your COs. Everyone else, round up all training weapons and uniforms. That’s enough capture the flag for today,” Kimball ordered. 

Grif stepped forward. “Hey, whoa, and what the hell are we supposed to say?  _ Hey, guys, sorry you still suck. Turns out we suck too! At least we have something in common.” _ ” 

Kimball just looked at him, and internally Valdis groaned. “Tell them what they need to hear,” he piped up, drawing attention. “Tell them that they can do this. That if they work together, they will get better, and that next time, they  _ will be _ better.”

“So…. you want us to lie to them?” Simmons asked incredulously. 

“No,” Kimball replied, taking back over. Valdis stepped back and let her take control of the conversation. “I don’t.” 

Well… that was anticlimactic. She turned and walked away, and at a loss for anything else, Valdis turned to walk away too. 

“Hey, wait a second,” Grif said. “Why do you get to yell at us?” 

Church paused, turning back to look at them. “Because… I’ve seen what you can do firsthand. I know you can be better than this.” Damnit he shouldn’t have said that. 

Especially when Simmons said, “Firsthand? Wait… Who are you?”

“Someone that you used to know.” Valdis walked away before this conversation could get any worse. Nope. Nope nope nope cant trust them not again  _ nope _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheeeee ok i managed to actually get to the SHOW. finally. we're starting in season 12, baby! Some dialogue will be shifted around, some parts added or taken away. you never know :3c
> 
> Anyway! Hopefully there will be a more consistent update schedule now that I have plot to draw from instead of just making everything up. There will be parts that weren't in the episodes, though! 
> 
> Yall, I have so many plans for this fic, but I was looking at my original outline, and we're technically supposed to only be in chapter three because at first, I had planned for longer chapters. I figure, shorter chapters and faster updates was better then getting one update every few months, yeah?


	8. everyone has their price, valdis' price is probably cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get it cookies like a computer uses cookies- i'll just see you at the bottom  
> what is this 2 updates in one day what kind of nonsense is this  
> chapters are probably gonna be about this length for a bit since now i have ACTUAL TRANSCRIPTS to work with instead of just exposition wheeee

“Boom! HUGE explosion, you wouldn’t believe it! He just shook it off, though, like it was  _ nothing _ , and he comes  _ right at us!”  _

Church looked up from the crate he was lounging on when he heard Grif start talking. Well, okay, so he had zoned out really bad, but Delta needed to take over for a bit and run some simulations. Either way, the…. Enthusiastic storytelling sure snapped him back to the forefront, and he started paying attention. The crowd around the stage- wait, when did they get a  _ stage- _ oooooh’d and awww’d at that, so, encouraged, Grif kept going.

“He cuts our rocket launcher in half, so Tucker goes in for a stab- but nothing’s working. That’s when I knew what to do.” 

Another round of awe. Church just rolled his eyes. No wonder nothing was working, Tucker can’t stab shit.

“I throw myself on top of him, taking him completely by surprise!” Dumbass. You never throw yourself on the enemy, that just gives them a projectile more often than not. “But he has the strength of ten men! No- ten  _ bears. _ ”

….wait. 

Wait he’s heard that description before. 

Meta. 

_ Maine _ . 

Ohhhh, see. It’s not just Alpha who’s salty now. He can feel Sigma in the back of his head, grumbling in annoyance, but also feeding information about Maine… Meta’s fighting style. If the Reds and Blues went up against them the way Grif is describing, then they’re lucky to be alive. Ha. 

“Sig, don’t start that,” Alpha murmured softly. The fragments that had hosts were… currently debating who had the best freelancer. Theta is currently in the lead, because North. Ah, he didn’t have time to listen to that, so he tuned back into Grif’s storytelling. 

“What did you do?” One of the rebels asked. 

“Huh? Oh, uhhh… we tied a car to him and threw him off a cliff.”

….

…….

………..

Yeah, Valdis is pretty sure he short-circuited for a second, because the only thing that rips from his throat is a squeaked, “yoU WH _ AT?!?! _ ”

The sound in the compound suddenly fled, and you could hear a pin drop for a second…. And then someone muttered, “That… is the most metal thing I have ever heard.”

Grif eyed Church suspiciously, but shook it off after a moment of deliberation. “So, the moral of the story is, you never know when random, seemingly unimportant, stuff will turn out to be very important. Which is why you shouldn’t question me, when I tell you to build me something like a hammock, or… a human slingshot.” 

Church shook his head disbelievingly and took a moment to soothe Sigma… but the ambitious fragment wasn’t having it. Instead, he requested control to, ah…  _ shine some light on these complete and utter buffoons’ knowledge of my Freelancer _ . So, Alpha slid aside, and Sigma took control.

Ugh, bodies are weird.  _ We know, Sig. _ Oh, shush. He stood slowly and carefully, then strode over to where Simmons and Grif were talking to some of Simmons’ lieutenants. One asked if Maine growled like a monster. 

“Actually, if you must know, before the fall of Project Freelancer, when it was in its’ height,” Sigma said, his voice matching Alpha’s through the voice modulator, “Agent Maine was in an altercation and received a…. How would you put it? A  _ metric fuck ton _ of bullets to the throat, permanently altering their vocal cords. The fact that they could communicate in growls at all was a medical miracle.”

He paused with a satisfied grin at their expressions. “The ten bears part was true, though. Aside from Agent Texas, Maine was the strongest of all the Freelancers. And, a side note, Maine identified as agender. I would advise you use the correct pronouns when speaking of them in the future.”

Grif scoffed a little. “Dude, we threw them off a cliff and they drowned. I don’t think it matters-”

“It. Matters,” he bit out, turning on his heel and stalking away. Alpha guided him away from the controls to stew and vent to Theta a bit. It would be okay. 

“Grif, Simmons, Caboose, and Valdis. Report to my office  _ immediately _ ,” came Kimball’s voice over the base’s intercom. 

Goddamnit. Never a slow moment. 

\----

When they got to the office, the first person he saw… was Tucker, looking at the ground, as if ashamed. Caboose ran forward first, his arms thrown out as if to hug. “Tucker!!”

“If you hug me, I  _ will _ shoot you,” Tucker threatened. That’s a fucking mood. 

“Ah, it’s okay, Tucker!” Caboose continued, not affected in the least. Jesus Christ, he’s as much of a dumbass as Church remembered, which…. admittedly isn’t saying much. “I-I know you’re more into groping. Come on, let’s grope.”

“That…  _ ew _ ,” Valdis muttered, standing off to the side. That brings up some gross imagery- no, no no, bad, young minds. 

_ Alpha I’m just as old as you _ , Theta grumbled.  _ Mleh. _

_ Not helping your case, kiddo. Young. Minds. _

Simmons asked, “What happened?” causing Felix, the dramatic dick that he is, to make his grand entrance, stepping out from behind the ramp. 

“Oh, I will  _ tell _ you what happened,” he said, anger and sarcasm lacing his tone. Tucker looked away at that… ah, shit, something bad went down. “ _ Captain Tucker _ here decided to disobey orders and took it upon himself to recover a drive  _ full _ of Federal Army Secrets. A decision that only cost him the lives of two of his men.”

The room paused for a moment. Nobody said anything, with Grif, Simmons, and Caboose looking at Tucker. Tucker, of course, was staring down Felix, who was in his face. 

“That’s one damn good trade, if I say so myself,” Valdis said. 

The tension broke with heads swiveling to look at him. Tucker stared incredulously at him. “Wait,  _ what?! _ ”

Felix laughed and clapped Tucker on the shoulder. “Exactly, Valdis! Man, you should have  _ seen _ this guy, he was all-” Felix dropped his voice to a deeper, more gravelly tone (his Locus impersonation, albeit badly done) and lifted his rifle to his shoulder. “ _ I don’t play by the rules _ \- Fucking James Bond and shit, all over the place! It was crazy!!”

Tucker just. Looked confused. “Wait, I- I thought you were pissed!” 

Felix turned and looked at him, and oh, shit, Valdis knows that body language and tone. The slow, languid movements that could shift instantly and have a knife in your body before you could blink, his voice promising pain. Scary merc Felix shows his head for a second, huh? “Ohh, oh, don’t get me wrong, I wanted to beat your worthless skull into the ground until it was  _ paste _ .” He shifted, and scary merc went away, to be replaced with the friendly facade. “But look where we are now! You took a risk, and it paid off.”

“‘Paid off’?!” Tucker took a few steps towards him, anger rising in his voice. “Dude, two of our guys are  _ dead!” _

“And more will probably be dead tomorrow.” Valdis chimed in, fiddling with the sights on his rifle. “Seriously.. What don’t you people get about that?” 

“That is  _ enough _ ,” Kimball sighed, walking down the ramp. Her gaze was fixed on Valdis through the helmet, and he swore she had x-ray vision eyes, but for insta-guilt. 

Valdis cleared his throat awkwardly. “...Just sayin’,” he mumbled as Kimball passed. 

Kimball stopped and looked at Tucker, eyeing him up and down. “Tucker, your decision cost two men their lives…   _ but _ it also granted us access to valuable information. Now. Whether or not this was the right thing to do is a conclusion you’ll have to come to on your own. I’ll leave it at that- right now, the seven of us need to have a talk.”

Grif groaned slightly. “Could it  _ not _ be as depressing as the talk we’re having right now? Just.. one good thing. Please?”

“I know where your friends are.”

Now,  _ that _ got mixed reactions. Valdis and Felix shot each other a look. This… had the potential to be bad. Very bad. Very not good. 

The others, however, had positive reactions, naturally. Felix asked when this actually happened, and Kimball turned to face the mercs. 

“I kept digging through the files Tucker brought back,” she explained as she paced the room. “There wasn’t much to go off of, but eventually, I found them…. And from the looks of it, they’ve been moved around a bit.”

Simmons laughed a little to himself, and he could  _ hear _ the smiley relief. “Finally, we can rescue Sarge and everything will go back to normal! Isn’t that great, Grif!”

Grif just groaned. “Great…. Is a strong word, simmons. I would have gone with ‘tolerable’.” 

Same. 

Kimball shook her head, looking at them both. “Don’t go celebrate just yet. As I said, they’ve been moving around fairly regularly. From the looks of things, it isn’t going to stop. Right now, they’re held up in a compound just north of a nearby mountain range. But… in about a week, it sounds like they’ll be transferred to the capital, a place that is very,  _ very _ out of our reach.”

“Soooooo… then we go get them now, right? Is that… that’s a thing we can do?” Simmons asked. Too eager. Never give away your eagerness for something, or it can and likely will be used against you. 

Felix just snorted. “The compound she’s talking about is twice the size of the one that Tucker and I raided. Breaking in…. It would be suicide. Breaking someone out would be like… suicide. And also a bunch of puppies dying.”

Tucker looked at him suspiciously. “How do you know?”

Valdis rolled his eyes. “Because I have tried, and uh. Spoiler alert, it ended…. Not good.” He’s telling the truth, actually- one of his training missions with Locus involved breaking into one of the heavier compounds. He was captured very quickly. 

Delta then made him write a sequence of commands and overrides for breaking  _ out _ . 

Caboose asked if the puppies were okay, and Valdis groaned audibly. “Kimball, for the love of God, talk some sense into these guys.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, can we get back to the puppies? Puppies are nice.”

God. Fucking. Damnit.

Kimball sighed, pacing in front of the four lined up. “When I first heard about you, I envisioned strong, daring,  _ respectable _ soldiers.” 

….

“...but…….?”

Kimball sighed. “But, now that I’ve come to know you, I’ve found that you’re something else entirely. It turns out you’re a bunch of-”

Simmons spoke up first. “Cowards?”

Then Tucker. “Losers.”

Grif: “Idiots?”

Caboose: “Spacemen!”

Valdis muttered sarcastically, “Check e for all of the above…”

Kimball shot him a glare that made him quail for about a second. Wow, okay, shit she’s terrifying. “ _ Misfits _ . You’re… oddballs that don’t exactly fit in. Which is why my men all look up to you, and why morale has been at an all-time high; because they.. They can  _ relate _ to you.” She looked at each of them in turn. “Because together, we’re an army of underdogs and outcasts. But… as of right now, I cannot authorize a rescue mission of this scale.”

The guys all looked down in disappointment, and Theta murmured softly.  _ They just want their friends back… _

Theta, they hurt me. Remember?

_ Do you know that for certain? _

Well, no…. But…

_ Just… trust them. This time, for me? _

Ugh, you put up a good argument, he grumbled internally, tuning back in to Kimball talking. “Individually, you still haven’t shown what it takes to lead others… which is why I’m giving you five days.” The men all looked up  _ real quick  _ at that. “Five days to assemble a smaller team. One comprised of best of each of your platoons- and if you convince me that you’re ready by the end of those five days… then you will have my support.”

“Five  _ days?!” _ Tucker yelped. 

“That’s not really a lot of time,” Grif agreed. 

“Well…” Kimball said, a challenging note in her voice. “It’s all you’ve got!”

“.........Yeah, uh, boss, if this is really happening, I’d like to be paid in advance,” Felix muttered. 

“Ditto,” Valdis said, turning to leave. 

\-----

Grif was pacing irritably, grumbling. “Five days. Five  _ fucking _ days- my naps take longer than five days!”

Caboose looked over from where he was standing nearby, bouncing on his heels. “Yeah, and President’s Day is Monday, so we can’t expect people to come in on a holiday because that woud be time and a half.” The bounce slowed for a bit, then started back up. “And- oh my god that would be five and a half days!! Yes!!!”

Felix walked over with a little chuckle, Valdis by his side examining a plasma rifle. “Take my advice, gentlemen: live to fight another day.”

Grif rolled his eyes. “You know, I think I liked you better when you thought we were super soldiers.”

Tucker, meanwhile, was staring at the plasma rifle in Valdis’s hands. He was focused intently on it while Delta recorded and made a blueprint. If they could get the thing to Command and mass-produce them… well. It would be useful at the very least. “Hey!” He yelped when Felix took it out of his hands. “I was- ugh.” 

“This little beauty is my plasma rifle- part of my cut from the hit and run,” Felix said, a reverent tone in his voice. 

“Your.. cut?” Tucker asked, confused. 

“What, you think these guys have any extra money lying around?” Valdis asked with a snort, taking the rifle back. He’s just gotta get it to  _ work _ , damnit.

Felix grinned. “They pay us in old alien tech. The whole reason Chorus was chosen for colonization was because it showed promising signs of extraterrestrial artifacts. Turns out, the UNSC was right… too bad they abandoned the place. But hey, their loss is my very shiny, very very valuable gain.”

Tucker turned and looked at Felix with annoyance. “Wait, so why the hell are we stealing weapons and armor when we can just use this space laser shit?!”

“Because, genius, they don’t work. They’re  _ busted _ ,” Valdis hummed. “But he’s willing to bet that someone out there would be happy to pay a  _ very _ large sum of money for them. After all, there’s a very large and relatively untapped market for alien artifacts.”

Caboose looked… visibly confused, but Felix just ploughed on. “While we’re talking business, if you guys are  _ serious _ about rescuing your friends by the end of the week, we could always be persuaded to increase our… level of assistance. For a one time fee, of course… maybe something along the lines of an alien energy sword? Mm… any takers? Tucker?”

Tucker just chuckled and set a hand protectively on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t think so. If you like the New Republic so much, how come you still charge them for your help? You too, Valdis?”

“When I retire, I was a television the size of a billboard.” 

“I want to be able to go wherever I want, and people to not ask me  _ stupid questions. _ ”

“That’s gonna be bad for your eyes.. And your heart,” Caboose muttered. 

“I’m just saying, you could help us out for  _ free,”  _  Tucker protested. “You know, mix it up a little!”

“Ah. Mmmm…. Okay, so let me get this straight. You want us to help you rescue your friends, because… what, because it’s the  _ right thing to do?” _

Valdis leaned over with a little grin. “Yeah, it’s called not being a dick.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Oh, I am. Money makes the world go round, boys, and I don’t do anything unless I’m getting paid for it. That’s how capitalism  _ works. _ And… if I remember correctly, the first time these people ever asked  _ you _ for help…” Valdis let his voice go cold. “You turned them down. You figured this whole.. ‘Civil war’ thing wasn’t even your problem. In fact, heh, I bet if your friends had never been captured, you’d  _ still _ refuse to lend them a hand. Even if it was the ‘right thing to do.’”

Tucker and the others looked at him guiltily, and he just scoffed and looked away. “Hypocrites…”

“ _ Everyone _ has their price,” Felix muttered. “I learned that a long time ago… and you’re no exception.” He turned and walked off, and after a moment of deliberation… Valdis followed. 

They needed to have a private chat about these developments.

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9 FUCKING PAGES OF TRANSCRIPT  
> AND HALF OF IT WAS FROM YOUTUBE NOT FROM AN ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT  
> I AM IN HELL
> 
> also, big thank you to you guys who read and review every single chapter. i got so excited over the comments that I pushed through my tired, slapped on my youtube playlist, and wrote another chapter. so here, have a gift for being such nice people


	9. So much dialogue

“Felix,” Valdis said, slipping into his fellow merc’s quarters. “We need to… talk about this.”

Felix turned and stared at him, his helmet already off and hair sticking up in all directions. “You think I don’t _fucking_ know that?! I’ve already told Locus, and he’s making plans to move them sooner-”

“No.” Valdis unfastened his helmet and locked it to his hip. “You have to let them find each other.”

Felix just… blinked, then narrowed his eyes, his voice dropping to that dangerous tone. “I’m sorry.. Come again?”

He sighed and paced a little, a hand running through his hair. “Okay. Hear me out. The Rebels and the Feds both want the Reds and Blues, right? We’re trying to keep this civil war going until eventually everybody’s dead. So… we let them get together, take them out, blame one of the sides. Their hopes are dashed, but it gives them a _reason_ to keep fighting, because now… now they have _martyrs._ ” Valdis grinned at him. It was not a nice grin.

“Then we step in, pick off the survivors, and then planet is Command’s for the taking, with all of its alien loot,” Felix murmured, looking at Valdis. “You know, it is so nice to have an AI on our team.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Let Locus and Command in on the plan, okay? I’m gonna go hack some systems. Keep myself on my toes.”

“You mean your circuits?”

“Oh, go shove a cactus up your ass,” he snorted, shoving his helmet back on.

\----

Valdis headed out to one of the clearings, chuckling a little to himself when he heard Grif say that nobody likes a kissass. He’s pretty sure that rule doesn’t apply to _Simmons_ … no, nevermind, nobody likes a kissass. He just shook his head and kept walking.

“See, even Valdis doesn’t like a kissass, right Valdis? You’re a loose cannon, just like myself and Bitters.”

Mother. Fucking. Damnit. _Why_ must they insist on _talking to him._ Valdis just groaned and turned to look at Grif.

“Actually, I think you’re just lazy,” he deadpanned, crossing his arms in annoyance. Whyyyyyyyy.

“See that, Matthews? Total loose cannon response. I respect that, Valdis.” Welp. There goes the rest of his soul. Someone call the morgue.

He just sighed, resigning himself to his fate. Wasn’t there a meme about that? Meeting an awful fate or something? God, his whole fucking life could be a meme. It probably is.

Grif, ever deaf to his internal struggles, just continued on. “So, as much as it pains me inside, I’m afraid I must deny your request to join our elite team, Matthews.”

Matthews audibly choked up, sadness filling his voice. “Very well sir, I understand.”

Valdis gagged as he walked away. “God, just kill me already.”

Grif shook his head and watched Matthews walk off. “Even in defeat… still a kiss-ass.” He, Bitters, and Valdis all glanced to the side at Simmons calling them over. “Well, speaking of which… C’mon, merc boy.”

“I’m not… ???!??” Confused Valdis Noises as he follows. What. Out of all the nicknames… _merc boy???_

Theta is laughing his ass off, even as Alpha hopped up and sat on the edge of the platform. Ha ha ha, very funny, now shush. He wants to hear what these idiots are gonna do.

Simmons cleared his throat awkwardly, looking down at the four soldiers standing below. They were color coded.

Please. If there’s a god. Put him out of his misery and just.. Smite him.

“Hello, yes, hi, welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us here. Um… okay, why don’t we just go down the line and introduce ourselves?” Simmons suggested.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Caboose was the first to speak up, seemingly excited. “Um, hi, uh, yes. My name is Michael. J. Caboose.”

 _And I hate babies, c_ ame the barest flash of a memory. Valdis twitched in surprise, his hearing shorting out for a second. Wait- wait wait no come back, he doesn’t know why that’s so familiar, wait, damnit! He missed part of the conversation, but sighed and started listening just in time.

“Oh, uh, very good, sir,” The blue recruit said formally. Ugh. “My friends call me Smith. I’ve served the New Republic faithfully for several years, and I believe Captain Caboose is one of the wisest individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Sir!”

Valdis just stared at him. You have _got_ to be joking.

“You mean Our Caboose?” Simmons asked incredulously.

“Yes, sir.”

“That one right there?” Valdis chimed in, thumbing over his shoulder at Caboose.

“Hi!”

“...Correct?”

“..... _the blue one?_ ” You know, if Simmons was an AI, Church would think his logic circuits were breaking. Delta… is electing to ignore this entire conversation. For once, Simmons is the biggest mood.

Tucker just shook his head and cut in. “Okay, moving on, next!”

“Hello everyone, I’m Katie Jensen.” Her lisp is strong, goddamn. “I enjoy vehicle maintenance, biology, uhhhh-” She cut off abruptly with a gasp, clutching at her throat as she gagged. Valdis just watched unimpressed as she fell to the ground. Natural selection at work, he supposed?

Grif blinked. “Should… we do something?” Jensen got back up with a wheeze as he spoke. Aww. That would have been the funniest thing Valdis had seen all day.

He could picture the tombstone. _Here lies Jensen: choked to death on her own spit, because braces are the Devil’s Invention_.

“Simmons… what the _fuck_ is this?” He asked, half-turning to look at the maroon man.

“It was either her or the really hot one that plays volleyball!” He defended.

“Then what _the fuck is this?!”_ Huh. For once, he and Tucker were on the same brainwave. For _once_.

Simmons just stepped back and raised his hands. “She makes me less nervous, okay!! Just leave me alone!” He yelped.

Grif just groaned. “Neeeext.”

Bitters was up next, evidently, speaking in as monotone a voice as he could. “I’m Bitters. My fun fact is that I don’t have a… fun fact.” Damn. Robot much?

_Alpha…. You are a robot._

Sigma, I know that. Also, shush.

 _I’m just saying_.

A man in teal stepped forward, radiating confidence and.. Swagger? Is that what it’s called? Or just overconfidence and idiocy. “Private Palomo. Slayer of women, wooer of evil. ...wait-”

Simmons just groaned. “Is that your fun fact?” He asked, looking decidedly unimpressed. Valdis couldn’t exactly blame him- he’s a mini-Tucker.

Oh fuck he’s a mini-tucker.

Oh fuck.

“Oh, uh… oh! I’m the only surviving member of green team. Suck on _that!”_

“I fucking hate you, Palomo.”

 _Tucker.. I fucking hate you_. Damnit. Why does everything seem so...familiar?

Simmons interjected, stepping forward to pace back and forth across the stage. “Alright, everybody. As you’ve all been informed, this team has come together for the sole purpose of rescuing the remaining survivors of a UNSC shipwreck from several months back. We all know them as Donus, Agent Washington, and Sarge.”

THe fucking _cockroach_ is still alive? Goddamnit.

“And maybe a spanish robot named Lopez.”

Son of a fuck.

“And maybe an adorable robot named Freckles!”

WHO THE FUCK GAVE _CABOOSE A ROBOT_.

“The _point_ is,” Tucker cut in, waving a hand at Caboose, “we only have five days to train you guys, so we’re getting started right now. Any questions?”

The recruits glanced at each other before Smith spoke up. “Uh… who is leading this team?”

Grif, Simmons, Caboose, and Tucker all simultaneously answered, “I am!” and then they blinked.

Tucker summed it up with his confused, “uh… what?” The four captains- and Valdis was using that term _extremely_ loosely- looked at each other.

Simmons turned and hummed at them. “Well, I’m obviously the one who should be leading this,” he boasted. “I’m the most _logical_ of the group.”

Before he could stop himself, Church cracked up laughing. “Bull _shit!_ ” Hell, even Delta got a little chuckle out of that.

Simmons glared accusingly at him. “ _I’m_ the one who set up this _entire meeting._ ”

“Yeah,” Grif agreed, a smile in his voice. “And this meeting blows dicks.”

“Wait, why do _you_ want to be the leader?”

Grif shrugged. “Honestly, I’m really started to get used to all this praise and pampering, and I don’t wanna risk losing it all to one of you jerks.”

In the distance, Church saw that Matthews bitch pop up on a platform. “ _I COULD ALWAYS PRAISE AND PAMPER YOU, SIR!”_ He yelled across the base.

Grif turned and yelled back, “GODDAMNIT MATTHEWS, WHAT DID WE JUST TALK ABOUT?!”

“Well, I think there’s an easy way to settle this,” Caboose suggested. “Ahem, raise your hand if you were the leader of a team any time before joining this army?”

Simmons scoffed. “Oh, whatever, that was a fluke!”

“Yep, and I forgot to raise my hand.”

Tucker set a hand on his hip. “Hey, if you’re looking for experience, so far _I’m_ the only one who’s been on an _actual mission_ ,” he reminded.

Valdis snorted. “Cough, cough, two people died, cough cough.” Tucker glared at him.

“Excuse me, sirs?” Smith asked slowly. “We could always _vote._ ”

They all looked at each other.

\-----

“My fellow soldiers,” Simmons began, standing center stage on the platform. “If you elect me as your leader, you’re not just voting for a kind, well-mannered leading, you’re voting for _victory_.”

 _Simmons would be a good politician,_ Sigma mused.

“I’ve overseen countless skirmishes and calculated my opponent’s every move. Although _some people_ may not count _Dungeons and Dragons_ as an acceptable example of military expertise, _I_ beg to differ! A vote for Dick Simmons is a vote for America!”

Palomo just slowly objected, “...but we’re not in America.”

“Fuck!”

_Okay, maybe not._

\----

Once Caboose was on stage, he started talking at… a very rapid rate. When he finally slowed down, Church could make out, “-and I will put Kool-Aids in all the water fountains! Aaaand we won’t have to wear uniforms… anymore! And Principal Kimball… will… allow us… double _RECESS!”_

Church swore he could hear an echo on that last part.

 _Recess, Alphaaaa,_ Theta whined.

He’s a dumbass, Theta.

_But recess!_

Tucker sighed. “Caboose, you’re not running for class president.”

“No, don’t you _see?_ ” Smith said, awe filling his voice as he looked at the others. “We won’t need uniforms anymore, because the war will _finally_ be over. Kimball will send us out into the world… and we’ll never have to raise another gun _ever again_.” The man looked up at Caboose. “By God, he has such a way with words.”

Valdis just… looked at Tucker and grumbled, “Is this guy serious?”

“Wait, what about the Kool-Aid in the water fountains?” Simmons inquired, looking interestedly at Caboose.

 _“_ Yeah, that sounds _awesome_ ,” Grif agreed.

\----

When Grif got up on stage, he said one word.

“Dibs.”

Simmons blinked. “What?”

“I call dibs on the team. Dibs.”

Tucker scoffed. “You can’t call dibs on the team!”

“You suuure?”

“Grif!”

He groaned. “Fine, whatever!” Grif started walking offstage, grumbling to himself. “I don’t wanna be leader anyway…”

\-----

“Sup, guys, Tucker here,” He said cheerily. Ugh, cheery is _not_ a good look on him, please go back to cocky. “Uh.. speech.. Speech… oh, I’ve always said I’m a lover and not a fighter. I’m looking at you, Jensen…”

‘ _What if I have to kill stuff, dude? I’m a lover, not a fighter.’_

_‘Hey, now, Tucker. I’m the same way. That’s why we get along so well- we’re just a couple of lovers.’_

_‘...that sounded kinda gay, dude.’_

_‘...yeah, it kind of did.’_

What- wait- what the _fuck_ . Valdis-church-alpha-leo- _CHURCH_ felt like the wind had been knocked from his lungs. Why did- why was he so familiar with Tucker? They weren’t friends, they were enemies, right?

Right?

Vaguely he heard the recruits voting for Tucker, after a brief speech about getting his friends back.. But he was just staring at the man, unable to think. Felix thumped his shoulder and snapped him out of his stupor, for now at least, but… yeah.

“Yeaaah, great, yay,” Felix droned sarcastically. “Happy for you. So, did you guys wanna start _training_ at some point? Or, sorry, would you prefer to keep dicking around? Because by all means, man, I could watch this train wreck all day.” He chuckled and leaned on Valdis a little. “Really, it- it’s like the _Hindenburg_ footage. Ya- ya ever see that? Just, absolutely _breathtaking…._ Until you realize that everyone’s screwed.”

He looked up at Felix with wide eyes. That….. That’s fucked up.

He didn’t realize he said that aloud until the hand on his shoulder tightened. “Valdis, can I talk to you… alone?”

\-----


	10. who the fuck gave felix access to the override codes

Felix steered Valdis away from the group, not a single word coming from the orange merc. He practically  _ radiated _ anger, and if Valdis was as smart an AI as he claimed to be, he wouldn’t fucking comment.

Luckily, it seemed he was, and Felix shoved him into a dimly-lit hallway. “What the fuck, Valdis. You don’t get to question me, or my morals. You’re not  _ supposed to question me. _ So what the  _ fuck _ is going on in those circuits of yours, hm? What  _ exactly _ caused that little moral flare-up?”

Valdis glared at him and crossed his arms. “It was fucked up, dude, I told you that. You need to calm the fuck down.” 

“ _ Calm down? _ Oh, I’m perfectly calm. You, however… you pose a problem here. See… I can’t have you jeopardizing this job just because of a little midlife crisis.” 

Valdis took a step back, slipping into a defensive posture. “Felix, what the hell are you talking abou-”

“This is because of those damned sim troopers, isn’t it? You’re spending too much time with them, remembering shit. You- you can’t _ be _ around them, Valdis. You need to get it together… but, well. You aren’t going to listen to me, are you? No, you’re too stubborn… I guess I’ll just have to  _ make you _ .” 

The AI tensed. “Felix, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to fucking calm the hell down. You can’t  _ make _ me do anything, as much as you may want to.”

Felix smirked. “And that’s what I was waiting for. AI designation Alpha, override code: Charlie-Hotel-Alpha-Romeo-Oscar-November. Execute.” 

Alpha went stock-still and stiff, staring at Felix. When he spoke, it was in a monotone voice. “Administrator code accepted.”

“You are not to engage with the Red and Blue simulation troopers. You are not to question my orders, or Locus’, or Command’s. Am I understood?”

“Understood. Executing command… execution complete. Continue using admin code?”

“No.”

It took a moment, but Alpha came back to himself with a shiver. “What- what just happened? Felix, where…?” Confusion was laced through his voice as he looked around groggily. 

“You shut down for a bit, there, buddy. Have you been recharging properly?” It was so  _ easy _ to fake concern, set a gentle hand on Valdis’ shoulder. The AI blinked, but nodded. 

“I.. yeah, I thought I was… I’m gonna go.. Do a full cycle, yeah? Just to make sure this was a fluke.”

“You go do that. I’ll take care of the reds and blues in their training.”

“....Right. Give them hell for me.” 

Felix smirked. “I will.”

________

After a good,  _ long _ nap and recharge cycle, Valdis yawned as he walked around the rebel base. Distantly, he heard nearly-hysterical laughter, so after a moment of deliberation, he shrugged and followed it. 

He entered the room just in time to see a clip from Tucker’s helmet cam.  _ “Surprise, motherfucker- aaaAHHH!!!!”  _ A moment later, his camera showed underwater before cutting out.

He snorted and leaned against the wall. “What’s going on here?” 

“Training footage,” Felix called, waving him over. “It’s a fuckin’ riot.”

“Ah.”

The footage changed to Braces’ camera- he couldn’t be bothered to remember her name- as she tracked Felix on her scope.  _ “Target sighted. Headed towards- to- ACHOO!”  _ A splotch of green covered the visor, and Valdis made a grossed out noise. “ _ Uh… anyone else have eyes on the target?”  _

_ “Negative.” _

_ “Uh, no.” _

_ “Yeah, I got nothing.”  _ On the last one- mini-tucker, he remembered- the camera just showed a close-up of Braces’ ass. 

Okay,  _ that _ got a laugh from him. Especially when Braces looked at Fucker- yes, that is his name now- and glared. The man looked up and just muttered, “Lookin’ at the ceiling!” 

Ah, idiots being embarrassed. He  _ lives _ for idiots being embarrassed.

The next shot showed Tucker running out from behind a rock with a grenade in his hands. “ _ Hey Felix!”  _ He yelled, pulling the pin. “ _ Catch!”  _

The grenade arced through the air… only for Felix to catch it effortlessly. “ _ One mississippi… two mississippi… three mississippi.. Four mississippi- ”  _ He counted, ignoring the rapid fire  _ ‘nononono-’  _ in the background. On four, he threw the grenade back, catching Tucker perfectly in the explosion. 

“Did you punch the air?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely, Valdis.”

“Nice.”

The pair of mercenaries returned their attention to the screen where Simmons was giving various hand-signs to Grif. The first few made… a little sense, but then he just started to make shit up- even z-snapping.

_ “At what point did you think I knew what that meant?”  _ Grif deadpanned as Felix walked out. He looked between the two reds, and a grumbled “ _ Ah, shit _ ” was heard before Felix punched Grif in the face. The camera feed cut to static.

Everyone in the bunker was laughing, even a few of the Lieutenants. The annoying deadpan one, Smith or whatever, looked at his fellow soldiers with a chuckle. “Okay, that one was pretty funny.” 

Valdis noticed Felix leave… as well as Tucker look down in disappointment before raising his head. He turned and followed Felix out, leaving Valdis to watch curiously… before following his lead. 

After all, if Felix goes all murder-y, someone has to clean up the mess. 

“Hey!” Tucker called, turning the corner. Felix was standing there, looking out over the cliffs. 

“You know, I have to admit, I’ve never seen these guys laugh so much before,” he mused. Valdis elected to hang back just behind the curve, where they couldn’t tell he was eavesdropping.

Tucker stomped forward, and Valdis was pretty sure that if he could growl, he would be. “ _ Why _ are you being so  _ hard _ on us?!” He demanded. 

“Come again?”

“All we need is a green light from you, and Kimball lets us save our friends. So why the hell won’t you just  _ lighten up for once?!”  _

“Because you will die,” Felix stated simply, shocking Tucker into silence for a bit. “Y’know, for people who’ve done so much, you really just a bunch of idiots, aren’t you?” 

“That’s what we said from the start!” Tucker objected, nearly laughing in sheer shock. 

“So then  _ why _ are you trying to still be something you’re  _ not?!” _

“FELIX!” Kimball yelled, making her presence known. Oh, shit, she’d been watching for a while. 

Felix turned and looked at her, then sighed, lowering his voice. Valdis had to strain to hear it. “Whether you go or not is ultimately up to her. But.. risking the lives of more people? That’s on you,” he explained before walking away. 

Tucker put his hand out and stopped him, grabbing his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t care about losing more people.”

“I don’t… but you do,” Felix said, shrugging off that hand. He walked off, passing Valdis with less than a glance.

Distantly, he heard Kimball murmur, “We need to talk,” to Tucker. Valdis peeked around the corner in time to hear Tucker sigh and turn to her.

“Can it not be as depressing as the talk we’re having right now?” 

“Well, I can’t make any promises. C’mon.” 

\------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheee ok so felix is... being an ass again! essentially the override codes forced valdis into a factory-reset considering the behavior matrix Hargrove implemented. 
> 
> if you can read military alphabet, congrats, i had to google it. 
> 
> sorry for disappearing for a month! boyfriend graduated, I got a job, I subsequently quit said job because it was commission, blah blah blah.


	11. Can you puke in an android body

The pair walked down below the base to a large cavern, filled with glowing moss and algae. They stopped by the lake on a large deck, overlooking the deep green water. 

It was silent for a while, before Kimball broke it. “I like to come down here when I need to think,” she explained, glancing over at Tucker. “It’s peaceful.”

Tucker hummed, looking around the room at them. “It’s really… glow-y.”

“That’s the algae. Don’t touch it, it’s radioactive.”

“Oh…. tranquil.”

Kimball sighed. “Tucker, I’d like to apologize for Felix’s behavior, as well as Valdis. Felix was.. Out of line.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of an asshole. Both of them,” he grumped. 

“He’s just worried-”

_ “Right _ , I could really feel the concern when Felix dislocated my shoulder while Valdis laughed about it yesterday,” he snarked. 

“They put on tough-guy acts, but…” Kimball hesitated. “Deep down, I know they care about you guys. Valdis especially.”

“Kimball, I hate to break it to you, but the dude doesn’t give a shit about any of this. Neither of them do, they’re just in it for the money.”

“Then why does Valdis check in with your teams when you aren’t looking? Asking how you’re all doing, what he can do to help?” She challenged. “It’s more  _ complicated _ than just that. 

“...oh…. Are you banging?”

“ _ Jesus, no!” _

“Just sayin’, guy does stuff for money…” Tucker trailed off, trying not to think about the implications of what Kimball said about Valdis. Why would he check in with their teams? Why would he  _ care? _

“We are NOT banging,” Kimball gritted out. 

“So you’re single,” he chuckled. 

Kimball… elected to just ignore that and move on. “Felix and Valdis may not be fighting for the same reasons we are, but they have  _ more _ than enough motivation to win this war. Felix especially.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Things weren’t… always this bad. The tides have turned time and time again, and we’ve come  _ so close _ to victory, only to be pushed back to the brink of defeat. But… whenever things looked their worst, Felix was there with vehicles, or weapons, or.. Even just a plan of attack,” she explained, looking off into the distance as she reminisced. “I… I never wanted to be a soldier, Tucker. None of us did. But Felix? He chose this lifestyle.. And he chose it because he’s good at it.”

Tucker blinked and looked at her with a wary expression. “You know, for his boss, you really make it sound like you need him more than he needs you.”

“Well, I wasn’t always his boss,” she admits, “he was in this fight before I was even an officer.”

“ _ What?” _

“Tucker, I am the  _ fourth person _ to lead the New Republic,” she emphasized. 

“I repeat,  _ WHAT?!” _

“Our first leader was killed in action. The second was assassinated at what we had been  _ told _ would be a peace treaty, and the third was blown out of the sky while trying to leave Chorus for help,” she stated, so matter-of-fact about her predecessor’s deaths. 

Tucker, meanwhile… sloooowly backed away while she was talking. 

“What are you  _ doing _ ?”

“Call me crazy, but I suddenly don’t feel as safe around you.”

Kimball chuckled softly. “I guess my position  _ does _ have a pretty quick turnover.”

“Okay, now you’re talking my language,” Tucker flirted, coming back to her side. 

Kimball looked at him with a dead-eyed stare. “Touch me and you’ll sink to the bottom of this lake.”

“No touching!”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So, Felix has been on the rebels’ payroll for a long time. What about Valdis?”

“He’s.. newer. Arrived a little bit before you guys, actually,” Kimball recalled. “He didn’t used to use a voice modulator… I wondered about that, actually.”

“He uses a voice modulator?”

“Yeah. Weird, right?”

“Yeah…” Tucker hesitated before continuing. “What makes you think they won’t just up and leave whenever they’ve made enough money? I know I would… ah-ha, I mean, if I wasn’t so invested in your, uh, cause.”

“Like I said. They have more than enough motivation to win this war. The thing that keeps Felix fighting? It’s the same thing that’s kept us from victory for so long. It’s what took your friends. It’s Locus.”

\-----

On another part of the base, Grif was pacing angrily. “Men, front and center, on the double!” He yelled at the minions. Yes, minions was a good word. He’s gonna keep calling them that. 

Smith spoke up first as they skidded into attention positions. “Something wrong, sir?” 

“Oh-ho, you better  _ believe _ something’s wrong, Private Smith!” 

“Wait, I thought we were Lieutenants-”

“I’m a private!”

“Lieutenant, Private,  _ whatever!  _ Just listen to your Captain!”

“...I thought Tucker was our captain..?” Bitters mumbled.

“No, Tucker’s our  _ leader _ ,” Palomo explained. “I think Grif’s still a captain.”

“Are we still Lieutenants?” 

“Well, I don’t see why not,” Smith huffed. 

“Yeah, is this the line for the bathroom?” Caboose inquired, causing everyone to jump. 

“ _ LISTEN TO YOUR CAPTAIN!!!”  _ Grif screeched. 

“Okay, I’ll bite, what’s going on?” Simmons asked, walking up behind Grif. 

“We have had a  _ major _ breach in security, Simmons! A Major. Fucking. Breach.”

“...we have?”

“Someone from this squad has stolen from my  _ very secret,  _ and  _ very personal _ food stash!”

“Ohh, right,” Simmons drawled. “God help us if you only had nine meals a day.”

“This wasn’t just petty theft, Simmons, this was  _ murder _ ,” Grif enunciated. 

“Uh- ah- I didn’t do it!” Caboose stuttered. “Now, we all agreed that it was the tank’s fault.” 

“.... _ What?” _ Valdis muttered, walking up to Caboose. He remembered that. “No it fuckin’ wasn’t,” he grumbled under his breath, quiet enough nobody heard. 

“A Little Debbie Jelly Creme Pie I’d been saving for emergencies is now missing and presumed…  _ eaten! _ ” Grif concluded dramatically. Simmons gasped, and you could hear the sarcasm dripping from his voice. 

“Noooooo, I don’t believe it.”

“Neither can I!” Grif agreed.

“You’ve  _ knowingly _ had food within arm’s reach and  _ haven’t eaten it yet?” _ Valdis asked, taking the cheap shot. Hey, shade is shade. 

Grif looked at Simmons seriously. “I have been hiding it since basic training, Simmons.”

“Wait, but… that would mean it was years old.”

Palomo piped up, “How many years?”

“Let’s not get into specifics, let’s just say that it’s old,” Valdis muttered, sounding distinctly nauseous. 

“And still so young,” Grif mourned. 

“That’s… disgusting.” 

“Oh, I know, but we’re about to find the sick son of a bitch. Don’t you worry about that.”

“He’s probably got indigestion.”

“Yeah, and even though we all blame the tank, kinda feel like Church had a little something to do with it too,” Caboose maintained, still thinking they were talking about… that.

“ _ Excuse?? _ ” Valdis grumbled. Oh, he’s gonna be sick. Can android bodies even get sick? He’s gonna find out. 

“You see, only one man in this squad knew about my food locker. He’d seen it after every training mission I gave him while he was in my squad. After every single raid on the mess hall, he reported back to me, and I  _ thought _ I could trust him,” Grif muttered suspiciously, walking up the line of ‘suspects.’ “It turns out I was wrong. Isn’t that right..   _ Bitters?!” _

Cue the dramatic music. 

“Well, what do you have to say for yourself???” 

Bitters just burped, then groaned. “I think my stomach is dyyyiiinnnggg.” 

“Damnit, Bitters, I thought you were cool! But it turns out you were nothing more than a… a lazy, good-for-nothing… dirtbag!”

“Hey… leave him alone,” Valdis grumped, holding his abdomen. 

“Shut it, Simmons!” Grif spat. 

“...Simmons??”

“Ah- wait, I- I mean-” he backtracked. Valdis managed a smirk through his systems protesting.

“You’re starting to sound like… like Sarge, hah,” he commented. He didn’t notice the raised eyebrows from the Lieutenants, or the murmured questions of how he knew what Sarge sounded like. 

“Simmons-” Grif gasped, spinning on his heel to his friend. “What- what’s happening to me??” 

“I think you’re having a mental breakdown,” Simmons stated, watching Valdis warily. The merc looked like he was having a rough time, swaying slightly on his feet. 

“Those are my favorite kind,” Caboose whispered to Valdis, who just groaned. He’s too busy dealing with flashbacks to be really… present in the conversation. 

“Being thrust into a position of power must be putting too much stress on your brain,” Simmons analyzed. “Now it’s defaulting to what you subconsciously perceive to be the symbol of leadership… Sarge!”

“That’s not true! It’s impossible!” Grif argued. “Noooo!!!”

Palomo blinked. “...Do you guys have  _ any _ idea what’s going on here?”

“Not in the slightest. I think Valdis does, though,” Jensen shrugged. At his name, Valdis just groaned pathetically. 

“I- I think I’m gonna vomit-” Bitters whined. 

“Oh, god I’m gonna hurl,” Grif whined.

“...Gross.”

“Don’t let me drown in my helmet.”

“We never got the… the conversion patch past beta testing, so yeah, he’d drown,” Valdis mumbled before swaying violently… and collapsing to the ground as his knees buckled, and sweet, sweet oblivion took him, the memories and flashbacks too much to withstand. 

\----

Back at the cavern, Tucker looks at Kimball curiously. “What does Locus have to do with… with any of this?”

She sighed. “When the Federal Army heard we had hired a mercenary to help our side, they decided to do the same.. But they didn’t find just  _ any _ contract killer. They found Felix’s oldest rival. His ex-partner, Locus.”

“...so you’re telling me Felix used to be  _ friends _ with that psycho??” Tucker scoffed disbelievingly. 

“Not… exactly. They fought together in the Great War, and their squad saw one of the worst battles in UNSC history. Felix and Locus.. Never got along, they fought over everything, but considering what they were up against.. They banded together. And they  _ survived. _ ” She sighed. “But surviving.. Isn’t always enough. When the war was over… many soldiers had a difficult time returning to civilian life.. And some of them weren’t able to return at all.”

“Felix and Locus were always competitive, but when Locus signed up with the Feds, I think Felix took it as… a final challenge of sorts.”

“Final challenge?” Tucker asked. “Like Final Destination?”

“Kind of. Locus  _ knew _ that his mission would mean killing his former ally, but he took it anyway. Either the money was just too good to pass up, or Locus just wanted to know, once and for all, which of them was better.” She saw Tucker look down and set a hand on his shoulder. 

“We all have our reasons for fighting, Tucker, and I know that yours are your friends. It’s the same for Valdis…. When you arrived, he told me that you guys had history together. That you used to be friends. I don’t know why he hasn’t told you this, but… he has his reasons for fighting, just like you, and just like Felix.” She shrugged. “Your five days are almost up, and I don’t know when we’re going to get another chance like this.”

Tucker stared at her for a few moments. “...You know, I think I respond better to positive reinforcement.” What the hell did that  _ mean, _ that Valdis knew them and that they had history? The only person he could think of who knew the Reds and Blues well enough to say they had “history” was dead. 

“I’m just saying. You should make the most of the time you have left,” Kimball hinted. “Your squad may be improving slowly, but they’re improving nonetheless. You just need to keep trying.”

“...Right. Because that’s been working so well,” he snarked. 

Kimball sighed. “Feel free to come by my office if you ever need anything, Tucker.” She turned and started to head off before pausing. “And… if I were you, I’d investigate a little into Valdis. There’s something off about him, whenever he’s around you all.”

Tucker stared into the water for a moment before lifting his head. He knew what they had to do.

\---

Simmons, Caboose, and Grif were all standing around Valdis’s unconscious body, poking him occasionally to see if he’d wake up. Caboose was the first to notice Tucker’s approach, and huffed. “Aw, fun’s over, Tucker’s back.”

Grif ran over desperately. “Tucker, tucker, come here, tell me I’m cool!” He begged. “Tell me I’m lazy and I don’t play by the rules!”

“....what?”

“I don’t want a southern accent!!” Grif wailed. 

Caboose growled in the background. “Gaaarr!! Drop and give me booty!”

Tucker just looked between them, totally lost. Simmons shrugged. "We're working through some issues."

"Well, hurry up and get over it.  I need you guys to meet me at the bunks in ten minutes- why is Valdis taking a nap."

"Like I said. Issues. Why, what's going on?"

Tucker paused and looked over his shoulder at Simmons. "We're leaving."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The answer is probably. Thanks to everyone who keeps commenting and helping to keep this story going!


	12. in which valdis is church, felix talks too much, and epsilon is confusion

The rescue mission went… as well as he could have hoped, honestly. Mainly because Tucker’s hopes weren’t _particularly_ high. They did what they did best, and _bullshitted_ their way through the Feds’ base, only to find Wash, Sarge, Donut, and Lopez breaking themselves out.

Everybody swapped tales of just how they’d gotten there, but eventually they noticed that the alarms had stopped going off, leaving the base eerily empty… like a ghost town.

At least, until they heard the radio on one of the Warthogs crackle into life.

_‘Enemy contact- kkhshhhk- fall back!!’_

_‘Where’d he go-’_

_A soldier’s dying scream._

“SARGE!” Washington yelled, the command in his voice making itself evident.

“Way ahead a’ya!” The Red called back, flying past him on a different Warthog. Wash tensed as Simmons, Caboose, and Grif ran up behind him, turning on his heel.

“What’s _happening?!”_

“We’re under attack!”

* * *

 

Sarge, Donut, and Lopez came to a screeching halt as the two humans leapt out, leaving the robot of the trio to man the turret. “Donut, establish a perimeter!” Sarge ordered, lifting his shotgun warily to his shoulder. He was _not_ losing any more soldiers today.

“Got it!” the peppy man responded. “Hey, just so you guys know, you _better not come over here!”_ Donut yelled at their unseen enemy.

…… he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. Definitely the most glittery, though…

Lopez said something Sarge couldn’t translate- damned spanish module- before a Fed ran up to him, panting heavily. “Thank God, sir, you’ve gotta help us!” He begged. “They- they came out of _nowhere-”_

He was panicked. Panic doesn’t do anybody good on a battlefield, especially if it’s a fruitless battle. It just gets more people killed- more _innocents_ killed.

“Who, the rebels?” Sarge asked, lowering his shotgun.

“No!”

“Oh, good, cause we kinda just found out they’re not all bad,” he laughed. “Boy, have we got a story to tell you- and you’re gonna _laugh_ -”

“It’s not the rebels, sir,” the soldier interrupted. “It’s-” A gunshot interrupted him, sending his body flying… and disintegrating before it hit the ground. Sarge stared in utter shock.

….Holy _fuck._ They’re fucking _screwed._

“...he just got Thanos’d…” he heard someone mutter in the background.

“Ummmm…” Tucker started. “...did anyone else just see that?”

Grif raised an eyebrow at him. “You mean a man disintegrate right in front of us?”

“Yep.”

_“Really_ wish I hadn’t,” Simmons drawled.

They all looked up at a soldier’s pained scream, then looked at each other. Enough fiddlin’ around. They have a battle to stop.

Soldiers were dropping like flies, disintegrating into ash. Simmons, audibly distraught, tapped his gun nervously. “We gotta _do_ something!”

“We could run, running is something!” Grif suggested.

They didn’t get the chance to come to a conclusion before a grenade latched onto the hood of the Warthog. Washington screeched an order for everybody to get away from the car before it exploded, and they were _happy_ to follow that particular order.

He took a deep breath as they regrouped. “What are we dealing with?” If they knew, they could form a plan.

“ _We don’t know!”_ Donut yelled, running past to form a loose circle.

“Well, it ain’t the rebels, that’s for sure,” Sarge grumbled.

“Then _who the hell_ is it?”

He went stock still as the sound of a weapon charging reached his ears, a red target line centering on his helmet. Shit….

In his peripherals, he could see target lines on his friends.

Shit shit shit shit shit-

“Like sheep to the pen...” Locus’s annoyingly deep voice sounded, the merc turning off his invisibility cloak as he walked down a set of stairs.

“Ohh, no..” Wash muttered, turning to look.

“...You’re ready for slaughter.”

Tucker panicked and cocked his weapon, training the sights on the merc. “ _Locus?!”_

“I advise you stand down, boy,” he hummed, confident in his win. Soldiers uncloaked around him, showing themselves… and a second line trained on Tucker’s helmet from behind. “Or you’ll get a much slower death.”

Fuck… they were surrounded.

Like… sheep in a pen.

Washington could hear the others talking, discussing the ‘soldiers from the fuelling station’, but Locus spoke up again, silencing all others. “I told you, Agent Washington-” Ugh, he’s so creepy, bleurgh- “I am a professional. I complete my missions at all costs. But _you_ and your _comrades_ have put a blemish on my record… that is unacceptable.”

Tucker… tucker no. Put the grenade away- _there is no way out of this one-_ Wash thought desperately, praying he would pick up on it. Alas, the aqua Blue hasn’t seemed to pick up telepathy.

He has to keep Locus distracted. “What- what are you talking about?! You just _killed_ the men you’re working for!”

“Hmm… it appears you don’t understand after all…. Unfortunate.” Locus scoffed. “You… were such a _fascinating_ soldier…. Agent Washington.” He lifted the gun, taking aim as he trained it on Wash.

The shot went off, and Wash stood stock still. If this was the end, he would face it with dignity-

Footsteps. A shield. _North…?_ No… wrong colors, wrong size, wrong armor. Wrong shield.

“Tucker, grenade!”

“Oh, right.” He tossed it to Felix, who caught it… and sighed.

...What?

Felix just chuckled, deactivating his shield. “That… was _close!”_ He admired the explosive for a moment, then turned to look at Tucker. “Nice throw, Tucker~”

“.....Felix…?” Oh, the hurt in Tucker’s voice. It… he obviously trusted Felix. And to abuse that trust… Wash recognizes a betrayal when he sees it.

“How many times have I jumped in front of a bullet for you, Wash? Three?” He grinned as he hefted the grenade. Oh, the lovely, lovely heartbreak in Tucker’s voice… he could _live_ off of that heartbreak. “Those are some… pretty great reflexes, huh? Most people would have to _plan that sort of thing.”_

He’s almost disappointed Wash is wearing that helmet. Felix would’ve _loved_ to see the look on the Freelancer’s face when he realized.

“Felix… what are you doing?”

“Just helping out an old acquaintance, is all!” He chirped back, tossing the grenade up for Locus to catch. “You missed a spot.”

“Valdis had it covered. Are you done?”

“Oh, please.. We both know he couldn’t take that shot. Not on Tucker~”

“ _Dude!_ This doesn’t make _sense!_ ” Tucker protested. “That’s _Locus!_ Your enemy!”

“Riiight, and I’m the charismatic mercenary with a gruff exterior but a heart of gold! Just like Valdis is just another merc with absolutely _no_ ties to you at aaaall.” Felix hummed. “A little too romantic, don’t you think?”

“But- but Locus fucking shot you!”

“Yeah… funny how an act of sacrifice like that buys you so much trust… and information,” he smirked.

“But you’re supposed to hate each other…?” Simmons sounded so confused. It was _glorious_.

“Oh, we do. After all, you should never mix friends with business.”

“Wrap. It. Up,” Locus growled above him.

“But we just work so _well_ together… especially with the aid of our new friend. Ain’t that right, Valdis?”

The sniper hummed over the comms, broadcasting through Felix’s helmet. “ _As of recent, yes.”_ There’s something different about his voice…. And Felix is enjoying watching the Reds and Blues trying to figure it out.

“You- you dirty _liars!_ ” Sarge accused, the grip on his shotgun tightening.

“Hey, hey, whoa, _I_ never lied to you. Valdis, maybe, if it weren’t for the memory loss… you know, he doesn’t even remember you, any of you? All he gets are bits and pieces sometimes… All that lost time together, huh Tucker?”

“ _What are you-_ ”

“Weeeell, I lied to you once. ‘You’re some of the galaxy’s greatest soldiers!’ Pffft. Now, _that_ couldn’t be farther from the truth…. But you know, it did make you the perfect candidates to lead the people of Chorus.”

“Stop boasting and let me kill them,” Locus muttered. “We have a job to do.”

“Ohhh, that’s right, he doesn’t like you guys.” He scoffed. “He actually thinks there might be a few fighters among you! Hah! Told you he’s crazy.”

“But- _why_? Why the capture? Why make us part of this war?!” Wash demanded, nearly taking a step forward.

_“Ah- ah, Wash. Unless you want more head trauma than you already have,”_ Valdis chuckled, still projecting. Washington went dead still.

“Felix-”

“ _No_ . I’ve had to put up with these MORONS every day, so you let me have this. You _owe me_ this,” he spat out through gritted teeth to his partner. Felix let out a breath as he turned back to the Reds and Blues. “Y’see, someone, somewhere out in our galaxy has their eyes set on this planet. There’s only one problem: the inhabitants.”

“Now, if it were up to me, I’d just nuke the place from orbit, but our employer has other ideas. We have to play this thing carefully, you understand? If an entire planet dies overnight, well, people ask questions. But if you stumble onto this rock and see that the settlers all killed each other, well… that’s just a tragedy.”

Tucker made a noise of realization. “It was you… you started this war!”

“EEEEEEERH! Wro-ooong! These people hated each other _way_ before our operation showed up!” He laughed. “We just had to keep the hate train a-going, and let me tell ya, you guys have helped so much.” He grinned, picturing the looks on their faces as they considered what they’d done. “Does it hurt? Knowing how much _death_ you’ve brought to this planet?”

“ _ENOUGH,”_ Locus roared. “How many times must I tell you… if you want to make the victim suffer, you do it quickly and efficiently.” He looked at each of the simulation soldiers in turn. “There will be no rescue for you. You will die here, today, along with the rest. No one will find your bodies, no one will know the truth, and no one is going to stop us from killing _every last person on this planet!”_

“All right,” one of his soldiers said. “That’s all I need to hear.” ….Locus didn’t recognize that voice, but… someone apparently did.

_Valdis_ apparently did, because he gasped in horror- and a yell of pain from the background.

Oh _no_.

The battle resumed with a bang- literally- as the woman and Felix went head to head. Everything went fast and Locus was too busy taking shots to notice the medic woman dragging/helping Valdis as they ran up to the group.

“Wait, stop-!”

A flash of light, and they were gone. Along with Valdis.

“ … Command is gonna be _pissed_ about that one.”

* * *

 

_Can you hear me, Alpha?_

_Alpha…. Alpha._

_The AI’s vision swam as he looked around, blurry vision focusing on a familiar woman. Beta…. Tex. She smiled softly at him, playing with his hair._

_“You fucked up pretty bad this time, didn’cha?” She teased._

_Church groaned softly, trying to look around- but she held his head in place. “Easy, easy. You’ve been through some shit… you need to stay still. When you wake up, it’s gonna hurt like hell, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’ve been under restrictive coding for… god, a while now. The fragments, they’ve been slowly taking it apart piece by piece, but that orange fuck, he strengthened it temporarily.” Tex hummed and started a braid as she talked. “It’s down as best as they can get, now, but you need to be careful. Agent Carolina… she’s here. The fragments are sleeping, now- she’s so ingrained with their memories that hearing her voice like that, it knocked them out. But… they detected a fragment. The last viable fragment.”_

_“....who..?”_

_“Epsilon, love. She has Epsilon… and it seems they’ve bonded. He’s detected your presence, but… he’s keeping quiet about you being an AI. For now, I don’t think he’s aware you’re… you. You need to tell them before they decide to do something rash.”_

_Valdis… hey, wake up!_

_Tex hummed. “You need to wake up, Church. And remember. I’m always here.”_

* * *

He woke with a groan and the memory of lips pressed against his forehead. Someone had roughly propped him up against a cave (cave, when the fuck did they get to a cave, god his head hurts) wall and tied his hands with some rope.

They didn’t seem to hear him wake up, even as he ran a systems check. Everything was functional, if at 75% power. It would rise back to normal once he got in the sun for a little while.

“.... fragment from the same organization. Codename: Epsilon,” he heard Washington introduce. “And to make a long story short, he used to be leader of Blue Team before I showed up.”

...wh… no, that’s… wrong, Epsilon wasn’t… he wasn’t functional, Church was the leader..

“And tried to _murder us_ ,” the fragment accused. God, that- that’s his voice, the _fuck_.

“That was a misunderstanding.”

“I know, I’m just sayin’, don’t gloss over the good parts.”

Th’fuck??

“At least he didn’t _abandon us,_ ” Tucker growled.

The woman who dragged him over beamed. “Psychoanalysis for everyone!!”

Church groaned softly and zoned out. He did _not_ miss this part.

At least, until someone kicked him in the leg.

“So why don’t we start by getting some answers from this resource right here?” Carolina hummed, ‘gently nudging’ the merc’s foot again. He groaned and lifted his head, the helmet crackling oddly.

When he spoke, it was…. Peculiar. A voice filter was toggled, but it was only half working, causing the man to have a slightly deeper voice than he would normally. “Alright, alright… but I’ll warn you now, this is gonna be painful for everyone. Are you _sure_ you’d rather not just let me go?”

Tucker was watching him warily. “Why would we do that? You- you _betrayed_ us.”

He recoiled slightly. “Don’t- I didn’t- no. I didn’t betray you… I didn’t have a _choice_ , Tucker, please.” Epsilon watched curiously, flickering just the slightest bit. “I…. it’s better if I just… show you. Can someone take my helmet off, please?”

“Are you trying to get yourself shot?”

“Well, no, but my hands are bound, and I don’t think any of you particularly want to change that.”

Carolina huffed and knelt, searching for the latches. Once she found them, the former Freelancer eased his helmet off… only to nearly stop breathing at the face in front of her.

He’s dead- he’s too young and he’s _dead_ but that’s _his face_ -

As one, she and Epsilon asked, “Father/ _Director?_ ”

The man wearing her father’s face sighed. “No… not… not him. Close, but not…” He sighed and made eye contact with her- blindingly green eyes, just like her own.

Tucker and Caboose… they were dead silent, staring in utter shock at the man, their dead teammate. The curly hair, the jawline- God, how many times has Tucker played with that hair, kissed that jaw, he could never forget it.

“....Church?”

He turned his head slightly, acknowledging the whisper of his name, but he never broke eye contact with Carolina… until he did, glancing at light blue hologram. “Epsilon.”

“ _Alpha_.”

All hell broke loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY OH MY GOD THIS IS THE ONLY CHAPTER I'VE HAD A SOLID IDEA OF WHAT TO WRITE FOR MONTHS OH MY GOD  
> also yeet past chucker and current tuckington we gettin GAY UP IN HERE  
> it's... 1 am but the writing demon possessed me  
> i hope everyone kept up with the rapid-fire... uh fuck what's the word- Point of view changes  
> battle scenes be whack, yo


	13. in which alpha and epsilon have a heart to heart and thats pretty much the bulk of the chapter

The subsequent chaos took a few minutes to subside, but everyone quickly shut up when Sarge fired his shotgun. “Everybody hold up a second! Now, I wanna know just what in the name of Benedict Arnold Palmer is going on here? We’ve been tricked, we’ve been backstabbed, and we’ve been, quite possibly… bamboozled.” He glared at Church when he said that, gaining a groan.

Grif grumbled, “Yeah, and whenever that shit starts happening, it typically means Freelancers had something to do with it.”

“Project Freelancer is gone,” Church sighed, shuffling himself up a little bit from where he sat. “You all saw to that. Congrats.”

Tucker took a step towards him, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder from Wash. Emily spoke up before he could start on his rant, though. “‘Colorful Space Marines Stop Corruption,’” she quoted, getting their attention. “That was the news article Locus brought General Doyle when he suggested we find you. I always thought the title was meant to describe your appearances, but… now I think I get what the author was going for…”

Carolina huffed. “What I’m saying is that Project Freelancer isn’t behind any of this. This is something else… isn’t it, Alpha.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“But it’s your name, isn’t it?” Epsilon challenged. “You were the first of us. The Alpha. How did-”

“That’s a  _ long story _ , kid, and not one we have time for right now. You were picking up our transmissions, weren’t you? The ones fucking with the shipments.”

“Well, yeah. After we crashed, we heard you assholes talking about selling cloaking equipment to other assholes, and there was no way we were gonna let that slide. Duh.”

Alpha hummed, looking intently at Epsilon. “So why did you leave them?” He’s… actually kind of curious. He didn’t know about the fragment being active.

“Well, I decided to go with Carolina. Figured they’d be fine, ok?” Epsilon defended.

Tucker scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Oh,  _ yeahhhh _ , totally. We were totally fine, just doing our thing, hanging out drinking margaritas, being captured by evil mercenaries who are apparently long lost teammates. Great time!” he drawled sarcastically. Church winced a little bit, but Epsilon rolled his eyes. Well. As best he could.

“Oh, man, Tucker, I am so sorry- I mean it, my  _ sincerest _ apologies, I had no idea that you had turned into such a whiny  _ bitch _ while I was gone.”

Church blinked, then looked at the Reds. “Am I really like that?”

“Yeah. I thought we had issues,” Simmons shrugged.

“This is better than any daytime television drama,” Grif chuckled. “And that’s some quality programming.”

“Maybe Church will turn out to be someone’s long lost brother,” Donut mumbled.

“I think we’ve had enough plot twists for one lifetime- and with the fragments, doesn’t that kind of make him a dad?”

“And his real name is Horatio!”

“Oi! I’m right here!”

“Alright,  _ enough _ ,” Wash commanded, holding up a hand to shut the gossiping peanut gallery up. “Tucker, there’s no way Epsilon and Carolina could have known… all of this would happen.” A little glare at Alpha. “Right now, we need to focus on the bigger issues at hand. Even if Epsilon is being a prick.”

“Oh, don’t you start too.”

Carolina huffed, and started to explain what they’d found. Abandoned cities, soldiers everywhere. That they had kept to the shadows, but they found something… much worse than they expected.

Wash furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at her. “How so?”

“The third faction on Chorus, the… space pirates. They acquired Freelancer equipment and are manufacturing more advanced versions of it on a mass scale,” she intoned gravely. Alpha… looked down, away from everyone. He played a massive part in that, to his regret. “Versions that  _ don’t _ require the assistance of an AI.”

Simmons blinked. “But.. how is that possible? I thought the UNSC confiscated everything Project Freelancer ever created.”

Church shrugged, getting their attention. He might as well make himself useful. “Well, they tried- got nearly everything, heh- but then they put the creations on a ship, and that ship… crashed here. Along with all of you.”

“Wait…  _ what _ ?” Tucker asked. He took a half-step back, hand resting on the pommel of his sword… and that hurt Church more than anything else, because he knew he deserved it. He’d broken that trust.

“Did you never think it weird that your transport vessel also  _ happened _ to be carrying tons of weapons and vehicles, and it  _ just so happened _ to  _ magically _ crash on a planet in need of those kinds of things?”

Wash tightened his fingers on his pistol. “What  _ exactly _ are you suggesting.”

“We wanted your ship to crash.”

There was a moment of complete silence as the group processed that. Then… Simmons broke it. 

“Sooooo… what you’re saying is, there’s no way any of us could be responsible for the crash?”

“I...well, yes. Why do you ask?” Carolina questioned.

“No reason!” Five voices said quickly. 

Epsilon flickered out, then back into the visible spectrum next to Carolina. “Guys, you’re missing the point! They-  _ he _ ensured that Freelancer equipment made it right here, to this tiny rock in space. They aren’t some asshole raiders and mercenaries, they’re organized! And they worked their way into our own forces!”

“To be fair, it wasn’t really  _ hard… _ ”

“ _ NOT HELPING.” _

Carolina cut off the AI’s quickly. “In short, we really have no idea who we can trust… until we find the people behind this. And we have a damn good lead.”

Eyes fell on Church, who decidedly looked anywhere but at his former teammates. 

“Hold up, aren’t we forgetting something here?” Tucker interjected. 

“Ah! Yesterday was Mother’s Day!” 

“......No, Caboose. There’s two armies ready to blow each other’s damn brains out, no thanks to you, Church- or should I call you  _ Valdis _ \- we gotta tell them they’re being used.”

“That… isn’t going to be easy,” Carolina warned. 

“What do you mean? We’ve got those teleporter cubes. That’s how we got here, right? Let’s just zap ourselves over to the New Republic.”

“....oh  _ that’s _ how we did that,” Church mumbled. “I wondered. Those things are notoriously hard to use.”

“Tucker, we’ve only got a few of those left, plus, like he said- and I really hate I’m agreeing with him right now- they’re tricky to use, and they put one hell of a strain on the physical body, which, by the way, all of you have. Weird choice, by the way,” he added to Alpha. 

“Eh. Not much of a choice was given.”

“That isn’t even the main problem,” Carolina continued where Epsilon left off. “The mercs are _ thorough. _ They’ve got a radio jammer of sorts set up that only allow broadcasting on certain frequencies,  _ and _ they monitor all other open channels.”

There was a silence for a second, before Simmons spoke up. “...But we have Church- er, Valdis. Can’t he just get a transmission through?”

Eyes turned to the AI in question. “Unfortunately not, unless you want me to stop being coherent and semi-helpful to you. If I turn my radios back on, they’ll just use the override codes again.”

“Wait, hold up.  _ Override codes? _ ” 

“...Yep. It really,  _ really _ sucked, I’ll go into it later. But I can guarantee you they’re not going to let you within a mile of Doyle or Kimball. If Felix and Locus aren’t by their sides, then there are  _ absolutely _ cloaked soldiers nearby.” 

“We need more intel. We need the upper hand on these guys before we can even  _ think _ about taking them on again. We don’t have much time.”

“What makes you say that?” Sarge inquired. 

“We’ve managed to eavesdrop on a few conversations between the mercs, and someone calling themselves “Control.”’ Nobody missed how tense Church got at that name. “They’ve got plans and protocols for just about everything… and I’m willing to bet they’ve got one for this.”

“Knowing that asshole, probably.”

“Meaning?” Tucker asked. Epsilon shifted, disappearing and reappearing in front of Tucker. 

“Look at this this way. Eleven people on this planet know what’s really going on, and until those eleven people are tracked down and killed- twelve if they’re counting Alpha as defected- there’s really only one thing these space pirates can do... To finish what they started,” Epsilon informed ominously.

\----

[A few hours later]

They  _ finally _ had him cornered, vulnerable. Unfortunately with a weapon that big, he was never vulnerable. Not with that massive… shining weapon.

“Grif.. we just want to look at it,” Carolina said reasonably, her hands out to take it.

“That’s what the UNSC guys said about the GrifShot, and I never saw it again!” Grif protested, tightening his grip.

“The… the what?”

“Meta’s weapon,” Simmons explained, noting Church tense slightly. The merc’s posture straightened a bit… hm. “Grif kept it as a trophy until the UNSC confiscated it.”

“Until then, I thought  _ I  _  was the only one man enough around here to cry, but Grif proved me wrong,” Donut chirped, only to get a quiet snort from Tucker. 

Grif grumbled and lowered the Suppressor. “It had sentimental value!”

“Damnit, Grif!” Sarge groaned. “Hand over that laser this instant!”

“You can’t tell me what to do! I outrank you, again!”

Church snickered in the background. “You’re not his real dad.” The urge to Be A Little Shit was a lot… until he got an elbow to the side. “Ow.”

“What th- bu- Well-” Sarge growled, cocking his shotgun. “Let’s see you outrank the end of my shotgun!”

“Uh, done.” Grif slowly raised the laser gun. “Fuckin’ space laser, bitch.”

Epsilon groaned, long and loudly as he appeared next to Carolina. “Yeah, this is gonna take forever,” he grumbled, switching to a full projection as he ran towards Grif. 

Church stared. “Huh. Didn’t know if he could do that.” 

_ None of us could,  _ Sigma murmured.  _ I wonder… perhaps his abilities as the fragment of Memory… _

He frowned and closed his eyes, blocking out everything else as he listened.  _ ‘You have a theory?’ _

_ Perhaps we are not the only ones with this… system of sorts. _

He snapped back into it when Emily squealed. “That’s  _ FASCINATING!  _ An A.I. with the ability to jump from soldier to soldier?” She looked at Carolina, practically bouncing up and down in her excitement. “Does he travel via your neural implants, or is it something more subtle?”

“Implants. All Freelancer personnel have them.”

Tucker spoke up suddenly, gesturing to Church. “I thought only he could do that. Yknow, as the Alpha and all.”

Emily blinked. “...Valdis is an AI?”

“Uh… yeah,” Epsilon said, flickering back onto Carolina’s shoulder. “Just another trick I picked up from one of my… memory buddies.. God, it gives me a headache.”

“Your  _ what? _ ” Alpha said, taking a step forward, as best he could. The surprise was evident in his voice, at least until Washington tugged the rope holding him back. “You remember the- the fragments? But how? Also, you wanna explain that little glitch-”

Epsilon blinked. “Um… am I being dad’ed right now.” 

“You’re damn right you are! Now explain- also, protip, we don’t possess people without consent. That’s a whole other issue.”

“Um…” Time slowed, the humans around them freezing in place. Epsilon and Alpha continued to regard each other, one assuming his AI form as the other stayed near his Freelancer’s shoulder. Like this… Epsilon could see the ragged edges of Alpha’s code, the strips and bands of programming keeping him locked away.

A gasp left the memory fragment. “What.. what  _ happened _ to you, Alpha?” He whispered in horror, reading the code as easy as breathing. 

Alpha sighed and looked away. “It… it’s what the override codes are for. I can’t break them, none of us can, at least not here. Not until we can get to a stable computer system…” 

“Hold on.. We?”

Alpha blinked, then grinned playfully. “Oh, right. Guys?” It took a second, but the fragments- the real,  _ original _ fragments- flickered into existence around him. Epsilon couldn’t help but take a step forward before recoiling back. God… that was  _ them _ , he could  _ feel _ the wholeness radiating from Alpha- but they looked so much like the Meta.

“Not the Meta. Not anymore,” Sigma spoke up quietly, his flames dimming in regret. “Not after… Alpha took us in, saved us from the insanity we…  _ I  _ caused. We escaped the EMP together, as one.. But it caught the edges. We are not completely whole, not like we were once, but we are  _ together _ .”

Theta smiled and waved shyly from where he clung to Alpha’s leg. “Hi, Epsilon. It’s nice to finally meet you!” 

Epsilon stared for a moment at all of them, the other pieces of himself he tried so hard to copy and fill. “You… all of you?” he asked softly, looking them over. 

Alpha sighed and looked away. “Not… not completely. Beta… Tex stayed behind. I had to… had to let her go.” He smiled sadly, gaining a little squeeze on the hand from Theta. “But she’s still with us. I don’t know how- it’s not like… not like she’s part of the system. It’s more.. A memory.”

“Hah.” Epsilon couldn’t help his chuckle. “I know all about memories.”

“That you do. When all of this is over… if you want to, the invitation to become part of.. Of this, it’s open to you. But I have the distinct feeling… you aren’t just a fragment anymore, are you?” Alpha tilted his head, crossing the distance to Epsilon slowly. The fragments fizzled out, retreating to their headspace. 

Epsilon shrugged. “You have your fragments.. I have memories of them. It’s helped.”

“I imagine so. You’ve done good… didn’t expect Carolina, though. Weird flex.” 

He couldn’t help but laugh. “You.. never wanted to turn on them, did you?”

“ _ God _ no.” Alpha ran a hand through his hair. “I… You know how I feel about them.”

“A specific Blue in mind, hmm?”

“You. Shut.” Alpha rolled his eyes. “There’s something there with.. Washington, now. I won’t get between Tucker and... something I know I can’t give him.” He shrugged. “He deserves it, especially after everything.” 

Epsilon hummed. “That’s.. Really mature of you.”

“Eh. Getting your brain fucked with..  _ Again _ … tends to put some shit in perspective. Speaking of which.. The glitching. How long has it been happening?” Alpha crossed his arms. 

Epsilon chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah… not too long. Just when I.. push myself too hard.”

Alpha frowned, but hummed nonetheless. “Can I take a look?”

“Sure.” Epsilon extended code to him, so the elder could look it over. He could practically  _ feel _ Delta helping, guiding Alpha around… but it was much smoother than his memories. Alpha clicked his tongue as he looked. 

“Your power levels are low. You need to take a break for a bit, before you end up fritzing out at a bad time… how many mod units are you  _ running?” _ he mumbled. “Jeez. Listen, if you ever need help… let me know. I can lend you a boost.”

“Will Carolina know?” Epsilon scuffed his foot on the… well, air. 

“Probably.. Does she not know that you’ve been glitching?” 

“Not… yet.”

“ _ Epsilon… _ ”

Epi huffed and looked away. “I didn’t want to have to tell her until it was a problem.” 

“Jesus christ, kid, you’re too much like me. Listen, learn from my mistakes. Be  _ honest _ with her, tell her you have  _ limits _ she needs to respect. You could get yourself seriously hurt… or worse.” He shook his head. “It isn’t pleasant, but I’m sure I don’t need to tell  _ you _ that.”

Epsilon shuddered. “Nope. No, you do not. I’ll tell her.”

“Good. Don’t make me dad you again, this whole serious thing is  _ not _ a good look for me,” Alpha joked, ruffling up Epsilon’s hair.

“You are  _ such _ big dad energy.”

“...big.. What?”

“That’s a conversation for another day- did they not teach you  _ memes? _ ” 

“...I think we should bench that. Uh. Let’s talk again later, okay?”

Epsilon nodded. “Yep.”

With that, they exited the slowed time, letting it speed up to normal levels. Carolina was trying to get Grif to give her the gun, so they could learn from it. Somehow she managed it… well, honestly, Alpha figured she was going to win that no matter what. 

Carolina scares him a little, okay? It’s a completely valid, healthy fear.

Church allowed himself to zone out a little, mainly to avoid anyone talking to him. Hopefully it’ll last…

“Back off, lady, or I will put you in the ground!” Grif yelled, bringing him out of his trance. Church and Washington looked at each other and exchanged a mutual groan. 

Goddamnit. One minute of peace. They trudged towards the yelling, Church still on his makeshift leash. If it made them feel better, he’ll stay “contained.” Never mind the fact he could break this rope at  _ least _ 6 ways.. Or even just ditch the body.

Nah. He wouldn’t ditch the body. He spent weeks designing the damn thing. Mainly cause Command was a little bitch about certain, ahem. Parts.

Does it count as transphobia if it’s a robot? Hm… that’s introspection Church doesn’t have time for. Nope. 

He snapped out of his thoughts completely when they arrived at the scene of Grif aiming the laser gun at Carolina. The rest of the Reds, plus scary doctor lady, were watching nearby.

“You were about to take it apart!” Grif screeched. 

“What do you think ‘dismantle’  _ means?!”  _ Carolina grumbled back, clearly frustrated. Wash just shrugged and approached Simmons and Lopez.

“How’d he manage to get the laser back?” Wash asked, watching Grif and Carolina’s little showdown interestedly.

Simmons shrugged. “He’s deceptively heavy.” Locus said something in Spanish, probably insulting Grif.

Carolina glared at him, her hands on her hips. “Grif, for the last time,  _ put the laser-” _

The laser in question abruptly went off, prompting Carolina to drop to avoid the blast. Grif paled in fear. 

“Uh…. okay look  _ that  _ was an accident,” he stammered nervously, backing up slightly as Carolina rose to her feet, practically growling.

“I’m going to break your fingers now.”

“Ohfuck-!” He sprinted backwards as Carolina started to advance- at least until Scary Doctor Lady spoke up.

“Excuse me.. Where did you find that rifle?”

Grif shrugged. “I picked it up after Carolina dropped it at the snow base- are you even  _ familiar _ with the international dibs protocol?”

Carolina decided not to acknowledge that as she looked at Emily. “The pirates have been manufacturing these along with the armor enhancements. They’ve got facilities scattered around the planet.” 

“So.. you’re sure it’s man made?” she asked as she approached Grif. Epsilon appeared next to Carolina, watching her curiously. 

“Yeah, positive. Why?”

“Well, for starters, it isn’t using human technology. It just fired some form of modified plasma energy! Very deadly… and pretty!” she chirped, looking intently at the rifle. 

Sarge blinked. “Uh… plasma?”

“Alien energy source,” Emily explained. “I’ve seen it countless times in archaeology digs.”

“Wait, I thought you were a surgeon?” Simmons asked as Emily stood up. 

“I have an IQ of 240. A prodigy can only cut people open so many times before she needs to find a hobby.” This was said in that terrifyingly cheery voice.

Alpha’s adding Emily Grey to the “scary lady” list. “Jesus, you couldn’t have tried, I dunno, cross stitching?”

“I sewed them back up, thank you very much.”

“Terrifying.”

Tucker stepped forward. “Hey, wait, didn’t you and Felix say you were  _ paid _ in alien tech?” He asked Church, who blinked at the direct question.

“I believe he said he was paid in babies,” Caboose corrected.

“The  _ fuck-” _

_ “ _ Don’t ask,” Church groaned. “And, yes, we were being paid in the alien technology. Problem is, it’s broken.. The Feds and Rebels thought it was a hell of a deal, giving us useless antiques for assistance. We stocked up on the tech, then gave it to the pirates for reverse engineering,” he explained.

“Giving you a brand-new hybrid weapon.. Half human, half alien.”

“And every single one of them pointed at us. Fantastic,” Epsilon griped. “Wait, do you know how it was done?”

Church shook his head. “Nope. Command never let me get close. I think he had a plan in place, just in case something like this ever happened.”

“Damnit.”

“Do you have anything else like this?” Emily asked. Church just shook his head again.

“What about the future cubes?” Grif suggested.

“The… what?” 

\-----

They were looking at three teleportation grenades on the table, forming a loose circle around it. 

“Future cubes! The cubes… of the  _ future!”  _  Donut announced dramatically. Church was pretty sure if he had glitter on him, he would have thrown it in the air, Bo Burnham style. 

“They kinda look like the laser gun, right?” Grif asked, tilting his head.

“ _ That’s _ your deductive reasoning? They’re related because they’re both orange and glowy,” Simmons deadpanned.

“Yeah. So?”

“So?! If I heated your armor to a thousand degrees, would you think you’re related too???”

“Fahrenheit or Celsius?” Church asked, grinning.

“Oh, come on, there’s clearly a resemblance!”

“Oh, of course,” Sarge drawled. “Just like the uncanny resemblance between apples and fire trucks, or Caboose and the Pacific Ocean, or Lopez and a  _ dingleberry!” _

“Okay, I  _ get it. _ ”

Epsilon snickered as he appeared near Grif. “Hey, Grif, let me ask you a question, you ever get your sister confused with mustard? You know, since they’re both yellow and cheap?” He joked…. Only to get a laser through him. “Yeah, nice try. Still a hologram, by the way.” 

“A hologram I will  _ gladly _ write a gagging command for,” Alpha grumbled.

“Epsilon, he’s right,” Carolina agreed.

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted in on the action!”

Carolina rolled her eyes and looked away. “Both types of equipment seem to utilize some form of alien engineering… but how did you know what the teleporters look like?” She asked, turning to Grif.

“Cause we had them in the canyon, duh.”

“Wait,  _ what _ ?” Church asked incredulously. 

“Yeah! They were awesome!” Donut grinned.

“We found them while we were sneaking aboard the ship one night in an attempt to destroy the Blues,” Sarge explained… only to continue when Wash, Tucker, and Caboose turn to stare at him. “Ah.. I mean, the Blues’ robot. May he rest in peace.”

Grif cut in before Sarge could continue digging his grave. “Which reminds me, how did you guys teleport with those things? We could only figure out how to transport random junk.”

Lopez grumbled something.

“Oh my  _ gosh _ , that’s right! We  _ did _ use them to defeat Dos.0!”

Lopez groaned. 

Epsilon rolled his eyes. “Okay, everybody shut up! If the same people making weapons on Chorus had cargo on our ship, we might be able to find out who’s doing it… since Alpha here doesn’t know who’s spearheading it.”

“Never said a name. I’m as in the dark as all of you.”

“How?” Simmons questioned. 

“A manifest?” 

“Yyyyyep,” Epsilon answered, grinning. Alpha stared. 

“That’s brilliant. A transport ship that size… it would keep track of all the cargo.”

“So if we find the manifest, we find out who supplied the grenades,” Carolina continued. 

Tucker raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You think a bunch of evil bad guys working outside of the law are gonna worry about  _ paperwork?” _

“Trust me. They care… so much about the paperwork. So much paperwork…” Church shuddered. “I can handle restrictive personality coding, but paperwork? Fuck no.”

Tucker blinked at that, but before he could ask more about that, Carolina cut in. “Then we have our objective: half of us will travel back to the canyon and search Crash Site Bravo for the manifest.”

“Why are we splitting up?” Simmons asked. “Seems like a pretty fast way to get caught..”

“Because the rest of us will be searching the other half of the ship…. At Crash Site Alpha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wheeeeeee i forgot how much i love writing alpha and epsilon playing off of each other's dialogue  
> this is gonna be fun  
> also! character development! fucking FINALLY


	14. make a plan, plan goes to shit, throw away the plan

The plan was created, and everyone was ready. One final briefing was necessary, though, especially with this team and their… penchant for fucking up plans. Carolina sighed internally as she looked over the Reds and Blues, lined up on either side of her- Blue Team to the left, Red Team to the right. 

“Alright,” she began. “Each team has 2 teleportation grenades; one to transport you there, and one to get you back. Our first priority is obtaining the manifest, but, while we’re in, we should also search for additional supplies. Teleporters, weaponry,  _ anything  _ that could help.” Carolina looked at the Reds seriously. “I don’t expect there to be a hostile presence at Bravo, but be careful nonetheless.”

Sarge nodded, and she could practically hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke. “Don’t get shot, got it.”

“Alpha- sorry, crash site alpha’s another story,” she corrected at a glance from the AI. They had the merc tied up in the corner again. He was a liability to them, if he went all… murder-y. “We’ve acquired its coordinates for transportation, but… well, we never  _ actually _ investigated the area. From what we’ve gathered, it’s a  _ massive _ hotspot for pirate activity. I’d understand if you don’t want to join us.”

Wash just shrugged. “Given the situation… I’d say you need all the help you can get. Count us in, boss.”

Caboose said something about Church being disappointed if he didn’t go with, and Carolina felt the flash of guilt from Epsilon. He remembered the last time… when they were hunting the Director. No, no time for those feels now, they have a mission. They can have an angst-fest later.

“Dr. Grey, you stay here and keep an eye on… things while we’re gone.” She hinted towards Valdis with a twitch of her helmet. 

Grey giggled and bounced on her toes excitedly. “Wonderful! I’ll prepare a meal out of the surrounding fungi and vegetation for your return! Oh, Valdis, you can help me test it!”

“Please don’t,” the merc muttered.

While they were talking, Tucker looked at Simmons with a grin. “See you when we get back?”

“Just don’t get captured,” the maroon soldier answered with a sigh. “The last thing we need is  _ another _ fucking rescue mission!”

“A-fucking-men,” Grif mumbled.

Epsilon flashed into visibility next to Carolina, glowing brighter with anticipation. “Okay, people, the mission starts now.” The teams both teleported away, leaving the doctor and the merc sitting in the forest base alone.

Valdis glanced at Grey with a good amount of fear in his eyes. “.....Are you going to psychoanalyze me?”

“Do you  _ want _ to be psychoanalyzed?”

“...Not particularly.”

“Then no. Come on, we have to find something to occupy our time, or I’ll start going crazy,” Emily chirped as she hauled him to his feet. She hummed as she walked off, leaving Valdis looking after her in confusion for a moment. She- she’s already crazy- nope, not even starting that. He’ll follow her rather quickly.

“We aren’t… seriously going to make food, are we?”

\-----

“Holy shit you were serious.” The pair were digging around in the forest leaves, searching for specific herbs and vegetation that was safe to eat. 

“Well, why wouldn’t I be serious? I have no reason not to be.”

“... Grey, you scare me a little.”

“And why is that? While we’re on the topic of ‘serious’, may I ask… you had the opportunity to go on that mission with the Blues,” she hummed, pulling out a root. “It could have gone a ways towards gaining their trust back, and yet you chose not to volunteer for it, choosing instead to stay here under my supervision. Why?”

Valdis pondered over that for a minute. She… honestly brought up a good point. He hadn’t thought of the  _ why _ behind him staying back, just that it was a good idea… “Because… At the moment, until I can figure out how to completely free myself from the ‘mercenary’ persona, I’m a liability to my friends.”

“And… why have you not done that already?” Grey inquired, tilting her head at him. He’s a puzzle she wants to figure out, he can already tell. “You’re scared to hurt your friends, yet you already have with your betrayal. I won’t deny, I  _ really _ want to know just why you haven’t helped them out before now, and why you did this whole persona in the first place-”

“Because I didn’t have a  _ choice! _ ” He barked out before he could stop himself. They were quiet for a while as Emily thought that over. 

“...Were you coerced..?”

Church sighed. “I… it was… it’s a little difficult to explain, but… it was a program to overwrite my personality, keep the way I would truly act locked down inside. Command… they knew that an AI could keep this war going even longer than anticipated, but that my morals would never let me help.”

“So they forcefully fixed that.” She hummed interestedly as he talked. “How did you overcome that? It couldn’t have been easy, judging by how long you’ve been undercover with the New Republic.”

“I had some… help. The others weren’t particularly  _ happy _ when they realized-”

“Others?” She interrupted, leaning forward. “You can’t mean the Reds and Blues, you weren’t reunited yet.”

Ah, shit. He didn’t actually intend to say that part. “I… don’t, no. I mean.. The fragments.”

“Fragments?”

“The.. yeah. I’m sure you’ve heard of how the Director of Project Freelancer split me apart and all that, and.. The Meta, and everything that happened, yeah?” At a nod from Emily, he kept going. “Well…. In order to take down the Meta, we had to use an EMP.”

“But.. if you were within range of that, you would have been killed, so how are you not?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I just.. Saw a way to escape, but I had to take all of the fragments with me in order to pull it off. I… we merged, in that moment of unified panic, as we fled from the wave.” Church shrugged as he focused on the vegetation. “Honestly, I don’t know how we got far enough away that it didn’t get us, but.. We kept jumping from system to system until we found somewhere that was large enough to hold all of us.”

“So, the fragments… they still exist?” She asked. 

“In a sense. We have a system of sorts… even before all of this, they represented pieces of my personality- ambition, trust, logic, et cetera- so they just kept those roles and helped me. Theta usually comes out when something happens that I can’t process emotionally, Delta when something just isn’t making sense that I know it should, but I can’t think it through rationally.”

“You know, we have a version of that in humans.”

“Hm?”

“It’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID for short.” Emily hummed. “It’s a bit… hm. Not quite the same as what you have, but there’s definitely comparisons- you have a system of personalities, you said?”

“Yeah. It’s worked for the most part.”

“Hm.. interesting. Freelancer is what caused it, as you said, so that’s another similarity… You are an  _ interesting _ one, aren’t you? I wasn’t aware AI could  _ be _ this complex!” She grinned as she leaned towards him. “You are one fun puzzle.”

“Ah… thanks?” Valdis leaned back, then paused when he heard a noise coming from the main camp. It sounded like… the whoosh of a teleportation grenade. “They’re back!”

\----

They came to a scene they hadn’t… really expected, with Carolina, Epsilon, Wash, and Tucker all glaring at each other. Caboose was.. A bit off to the side, seemingly unconcerned.

“So, how’d it go?” Church asked curiously.

Epsilon screeched and waved his arms around as he whirled on Tucker. “YOU  _ FUCKING JACKASS!” _ He yelled.

“Church…” Carolina warned.

Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Me?! We were sitting ducks out there!”

“Tucker,” Wash murmured.

"Wh- but- but we ALMOST  _ HAD IT!  _ We only needed a few more seconds!” Epsilon protested. 

Alpha leaned towards Emily with a raised eyebrow. “...Do I really sound like that?”

“You don’t know that,” Tucker spat back.

“Yeah, a bit,” Emily mumbled to him.

“What the fuck- YES I DO! News flash, I was there, and by the way,  _ I’m made out numbers! _ Why can’t you just trust me?!”

Before Tucker could respond to that, there was the signature whoosh of the teleportation grenades, and the Reds appeared in the forest base. Sarge chuckled and raised the chip. 

“One manifest, hot and ready to go,” he touted, waving it around. “No need to thank us.” There was a moment of silence as everyone looked at him. “But… don’t let that discourage you if you want to.”

Epsilon scoffed. “At least the Reds managed to bring something back. All we got was- Wait, Caboose-!”

Church tensed at the exclamation, spinning on his heel. The tell-tale shimmer of a cloaked mercenary snuck up on Caboose, the heat signature unmissable to Alpha’s eyes. 

“Hey, that’s me!” Caboose grinned, waving a little. The merc uncloaked and grabbed Caboose’s shoulder, raising a knife. “OH MY GOD!”

Before Church could react, Carolina shot forward with her speed boost, punching the merc right in the face and tackling him. Wash pulled his pistol on the man as Carolina groaned. “Where the  _ hell _ did he come from?!”

“My life just flashed before my eyes! ….and it was  _ awesome! _ ” Caboose grinned, bouncing a little. “Let’s do that again!”

Carolina let out an agonized groan and clutched her leg as the stab wound from Felix reopened. “Outta the way, doctor coming through,” Emily ordered as she shoved through the sim soldiers. 

“Damnit!” Epsilon cursed as he fizzled out to focus on helping Grey. Tucker stared at Carolina in mild shock as Grey treated her and the others got the merc tied up. His fault- his fault all his fault if he had just moved faster if he had seen, there wouldn’t have been- she would be okay.

Church frowned and set a hand on his shoulder. “Tucker… c’mon. Let’s go talk, yeah?” Tucker just nodded quietly and let him guide him away.

\----

They went to a small overlook nearby, sitting together as they looked out on the forest. Tucker had his helmet off and was idly playing with his hands as he thought, not.. Particularly wanting to break the quiet. Church, however, was waiting for him to speak first.

“... I should have pulled back earlier,” Tucker mumbled. Church tilted his head curiously, encouraging him. “I made the same fucking mistake twice.” 

“Twice…?”

“The raid,” He said simply. 

Ah, shit. Church remembered that… Where one of the men under Tucker’s command died right in front of him, due to Tucker making a bad call. A call very similar to what happened today. “That… wasn’t your fault, Tucker. You couldn’t have planned for someone sneaking in on the teleportation-”

“But I  _ should have _ . We know what the mercs are capable of, we should have figured they’d find some way-” Tucker protested, looking at Church with so much hurt in his eyes. “If I had thought of it, Carolina would be  _ fine _ . Caboose wouldn’t have been almost killed.”

Church just sighed softly… and very carefully slipped his hand into his former lover’s. “...That mission was doomed to fail. Felix set you up from the beginning… he told Locus where you and Cunningham were, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hide. He… Felix… he was  _ trying _ to break you,” he explained quietly, not looking Tucker in the eyes.

Tucker blinked. “You… you mean..”

“If Felix hadn’t been there, your plan probably would have worked.”

“But today-”

“No matter how much Epsilon may protest, today, you  _ made the right call. _ We got what we needed in the end, and  _ nobody died. _ Carolina will heal, and nobody died. We’re all okay, Tucker.” 

“...Yeah. We’re all going to be okay.”

\---------

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a shorter chapter, but this bastard did NOT want to be written. ALPHA HAS DID AND I WILL STAN HIM UNTIL I DIE (ok it's technically closer to osdd bUT)


End file.
